






U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 

DIVISION OF CHEMISTRY. 
BULLETIN No. 25. 



TX 

Wis 



A POPULAR TREATISE 



ON THE 



EXTENT AND CHARACTER 



OF 



FOOD ADULTERATIONS. 



BY 



ALEX. J. WEDDERBURN, 

SPECIAL AGENT. 



PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY OF THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE, 
1890. 







Class L_A__ 

Book„__l_ 









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in 2011 with funding from 
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U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 

// 

DIVISION OF CHBMISTEY. 
BULLETIN No. 25. 



icy 

A POPULAR TREATISE 

Oif THE 



EXTENT AND CHARACTER 



OF 



FOOD ADULTERATIONS 



BY 



ALEX. J. WEDDERBURN, 

SPECIAL AGENT. 



PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY OF THE SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE. 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 

1890. 

2, 



Otq^j 



& 



^ 









PREFATORY NOTE. 



December 12, 1889. 

Sir : I have the honor to submit herewith the report of Mr. A. J. 
Wedderburn, special agent of the Department, on the extent and charac- 
ter of food adulterations. 

The object of the present bulletin is wholly distinct from that pursued 
in bulletin No. 13. The investigations, of which the present bulletin 
is the result, were undertaken for the purpose of collating in popular 
form well-authenticated facts respecting food adulterations, in order that 
the people and Congress might have, at least, a general view of the evil 
which it is hoped Mr. Wedderburn's work may help to remove. 
Eespectfully, 

H. W. Wiley, 

Chemist. 
Hon. J. M. liusK, 

Secretary. 



LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. 



Alexandria, Va., September 15, 1889. 
Dr. H. W. Wiley, 

Chemist of the U. 8. Department of Agriculture : 

I have the honor to transmit to you herewith special report upon the 
Extent of Food Adulterations, a work to which I was duly appointed 
by commission from the Secretary of Agriculture, March 5, 1889, under 
act of Congress approved March 2, 1889. 

In accordance with my conception of the duty imposed upon me, I 
spent the greater part of the limited time at my disposal, under terms 
of my commission, in gathering together important evidence in regard 
to the extent and character of food adulterations, such information being 
derived largely from the work of the various State sanitary bodies, 
official reports, documents, and discussions upon which the laws of the 
different States were based, the laws of the various States themselves, 
and the expressions of numerous scientific men on this subject. In 
preparing a report from the mass of evidence thus collected I have sub- 
divided it into several parts, with some reference to the various sources 
of information above enumerated. In restricting the report within such 
limits as would make it available for those for whose perusal it is prin- 
cipally intended, I have necessarily been obliged to exclude a great deal 
of valuable matter having a direct bearing upon the subject. Enough 
will be found, however, I am convinced, in the pages of the following 
report to emphasize in the strongest manner the necessity for such na- 
tional legislation as was sought during the last session of Congress by 
Messrs. Conger and Laird of the House Committee on Agriculture, as 
expressed in their very able reports, as submitted to Congress by order 
of that committee. 

I should add that I have confined myself strictly to the line indicated 
by the words li report of a popular character," expressed in the com- 
mission 1 hold, and have avoided infringing in any degree upon the sci- 
entific work so capably performed by the division under your charge 
in its investigations into this subject. 

I have the honor to be, sir, very respectfully, yours, 

Alex. J. Wedderburn, 

Special Agent. 
5 



• ]«*■ 



CHARACTER OF FOOD ADULTERATIONS. 



Adulterations are of two kinds, injurious and non-injurious to health. 
Adulterations non-injurious to health may be subdivided again into 
two classes, viz : Those that are simple debasements of well-known di- 
etary articles of which a standard exists, by which to test them, such 
as flour, grain, lard, wine, sugar, etc. The second subdivision includes 
such articles as patent medicines, yeast-powders, beer, etc., and presents 
special difficulties to the investigator from the lack of any such stand- 
ard and of any fixed rules to govern the formulas. The investigations 
of the writer show, as will, I think, be conclusively proved by the evi- 
dence adduced, that adulteration of our food products is generally and 
steadily increasing. That most of these adulterations belong to the sec- 
ond class, namely, the non-injurious to health, is a cause for congratu- 
lation, and in many cases of adulteration prejudicial to health, the use 
of such adulterants ought to be charged rather to ignorance than to 
malice. The result to the consumer, however, is just as grievous, and 
calls as loudly for his protection from deleterious compounds fraudu- 
lently introduced into food, drink, and drugs .as though he were the 
victim of malice. 

It may be noted here that among the most poisonous adulterants 
iu use are those used to color and cheapen confectionery and liquors. 
ISTow, setting aside for a moment the consideration of this most grievous 
sort of adulteration, by which the public health is injured, we find what 
we have styled " non-injurious adulteration ' ? so common that estimates 
as to the amount of which the American people are annually defrauded 
in this manner are simply appalling. Several features of this great 
and growing evil demand special consideration. First, this fraud bears 
most heavily upon the uneducated and the poor. While the poor man 
is compelled to patronize cheap stores, and iu his struggle for existence 
and his endeavor to provide the quantity necessary to supply the daily 
wants of himself and family, is driven to purchase cheap goods, the 
rich man can to a certain extent protect himself by confining his deal- 
ings to the most reputable tradesman and paying the highest prices. 

Again, we find that adulteration of many of our food products re- 
sults in cheapening the product of the farm, thus lessening the profits 
of the husbandman, and robbing both consumer and producer. It 
must not be forgotten, too, that even though adulterated with mat- 

7 



8 

ter not positively iujurious to health, such food, drugs, or liquors can 
not be as nutritions and wholesome as the pure articles, and especially 
important does this feature of adulteration become in the matter of 
drugs used to prevent or cure disease. To be fed on debased and poi- 
soned food, tainted or diseased meat, until the body sickens, is surely 
bad enough, without the efforts of the physician to prevent or allay dis- 
ease being frustrated, by his inability to secure unadulterated drugs and 
remedies fitted to do his work. 

OUR EXPORT TRADE. 

Our export trade, of which so large a proportion consists of agri- 
cultural products, is also suffering from the same cause, and here again 
a heavy burden is laid upon our farmers. With the total of American 
exports annually in the neighborhood of $700,000,000 of which 73 per 
cent, consists of agricultural products, the force of these observations is 
at once apparent. We have had many examples of the alertness with 
which European governments seize every excuse for excluding, or embar- 
rassing American export trade, while England, that most astute of all 
governments, is putting forth herculean efforts to develop the resources 
of its own colonies, and thus greatly increase the tremendous competi- 
tion against which our farmers have to contend. It may not be amiss 
to call attention also to the deplorable effect of this general system of 
adulteration upon the morals of our people. Nothing has been, in 
recent years, more startling than the fact, elicited by inquiry and inves- 
tigation into food adulterations, that men standing well commercially 
and socially, who would scorn apparently to do a dishonest action, 
frequently misbrand their productions, selling articles of food branded 
as pure, which they know to be impure. This fact was prominently 
brought out during the lard investigation, when the heads of wealthy 
and reputable firms unhesitatingly testified to the fact that they sold 
compound articles of food branded pure. 

Other reputable firms, while disapproving of such methods, admitted 
the practice of them, claiming that unless they adopted the methods of the 
trade they would be driven out of business ; and one of the strangest 
sights during the investigation referred to, was that of a dealer praying 
Congress to enact laws which would compel him and his fellow-dealers 
to do an honest business. We find that in other countries, notably in 
England, all the power of the law is invoked to prevent such practices, 
while in many of them laws have been enacted, directed against the 
debased hog products manufactured in this country. 

The lard investigation brought into prominence another product, 
namely, cotton-seed oil, as a comparatively new vegetable fat for culi- 
nary purposes. Most authorities assert this product to be perfectly 
harmless, while some few declare it to be injurious. However that may 
be, it is shown to have been used extensively as a means of adulterating 
both lard and butter, while it is probably sold as olive-oil more exteu- 



9 

sively in this country than the product of the olive itself. It is now to 
be found on the market as a pure vegetable fat, and should its use sub- 
stantiate what is claimed for it, there is no reason why it should not 
become one of the most valuable products of the cotton-plant. 

COST OF ADULTERATION. 

The total value of the food supply consumed in the United States, 
according to the American Grocer, is, at a low estimate, $4,500,000,000. 
The Grocer estimates that 2 per cent, of this, is adulterated, or 
$90,000,000, of which 90 per cent, is of a character non-prejudicial to 
health (this is exclusive of meats and milk). Accept. for the sake of 
argument this statement, and the result shows that there is $9,000,000 
worth of poisonous food products put annually on the country, and 
$81,000,000 of fraudulent products. This immense sum of money is 
simply stolen from the people each year by men who coin fortunes by 
cheating the consumers. 

That this estimate is far below the truth none can doubt for a mo- 
ment, after an examination of the very able reports made in those 
States that have attempted to protect their citizens against this crime 
of adulteration. Take the Very conservative estimate of Dr. Abbott, 
of Massachusetts, of a saving of 5 per cent, to the people in the in- 
creased purity of food products (to say nothing of the benefit to health 
and morals). On $4,500,000,000 the annual saving to the country would 
be the immense sum of $225,000,000. There is undoubtedly a large 
part of the food products that never leaves the hand of the producer, 
and, of course, this is not adulterated ; and again the wheat and corn 
production is rarely found adulterated in this country, besides which 
there are, of course, many articles manipulated and sold by honest 
men who would disdain to sell their goods if debased or misbrauded. 
Yet, in spite of all this, undoubtedly the. percentage of adulteration, 
sophistication, and misbranding, largely exceeds, in my opinion, 5 per 
cent, of the whole, and I am confident that 15 per cent, would be much 
nearer the mark. Such an estimate would give the startling figures of 
loss to the people of this country alone of $675,000,000 a year. 

Congressional investigation on the hog product of lard clearly shows 
that my estimate is rather below than above the mark. 

THE DEPARTMENT WORK. 

The Department of Agriculture has been for a number of years ex- 
amining into the question of adulterations, and the chief of the chemical 
division has prepared an extensive report upon this subject, known as 
Bulletin 13 of his division, of which Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are already 
\ in print and deserve more attention than a simple reference. It would 
oe well for Congressmen to carefully examine these reports, and they 
will see that much has been done by the Department in the cause of 
honest manufacture and in exposing the practices of the adulterators. 



In the exposure of frauds undertaken in Parts 2, 3, and 4 of Bulletin 
13, no attempt is made to prove that all adulterations are hurtful and 
injurious to health, as many of them are not. The great trouble lies in 
the fraudulent practice of selling a cheapened article under a false name 
and at the higher price of a pure article, thus robbing the producer of 
the non-adulterated article, as well as the consumer who is made to pay 
for what he does not want. Doubtless some of these adulterations are 
due to thoughtlessness and ignorance. 

THE EXTENT OP ADULTERATION. 

Every article" of food is to a greater or less extent the subject of 
adulteration. The people have no idea of the extent to which this 
damaging imposition is practiced $ from the cheapest and most simple 
article of diet to the most expensive the art of the manipulator has 
been applied. The inventive genius of the "American" has been ex- 
erted to increase the food supply, undoubtedly a most laudable and 
praiseworthy undertaking ; but when in so doing the manufacturer goes 
further, and in selling you pepper forgets to add to the words "Pure 
Pepper," on the label, the words "compounded with burnt meal, mus- 
tard, cayenne, buckwheat hulls, pepper dust, etc.," and also tries to 
obtain the price of a pure article, he degenerates into a common rogue. 

Experience proves that a very large majority of the harmless adul- 
terations are used to increase bulk or weight, cheapen the article, and 
rob the consumer. It is gratifying to know, however, that our manu- 
facturers of food supplies are conscientious enough (in most cases) to 
abstain from poisoning, even if they do steal. 

In the course of this investigation I have visited Boston, New York, 
Philadelphia, and Baltimore, and have met with a number of gentle- 
men, who promptly responded to my request for information, and were 
quite ready to aid in so important a work as the exposure of the frauds 
perpetrated against the health and commerce of the country. By cor- 
respondence and in personal interviews I have failed to find a single, 
uninterested, person who has not added testimony as to the extent of 
adulterations, denouncing them as an outrage against the public health 
and the welfare of trade. 

Such unanimity of sentiment, added to the able and voluminous re- 
ports of the officers of those States which have undertaken to suppress 
the nefarious practice, proves beyond question, (1) That adulterations 
exist to an extent that threateus every species of food supply. (2) 
That while these adulterations are mainly commercial frauds, practiced 
by unscrupulous manufacturers, manipulators, aud dealers for the pur- 
pose of deceiving their customers and adding to their gains, yet there 
are also, to an alarming extent, poisonous adulterations that have, in 
many cases, not only impaired the health of the consumer, but fre- 
quently caused death. 



11 

NEED FOR NATIONAL LEGISLATION. 

All of the State officials with whom I have consulted, or whose works 
I have read, unite in asserting that State legislation alone, can not pre- 
vent adulteration, sophistication, and misbranding of the food supply, 
and the evils that exist will continue until the Federal Government 
exerts its powerful influence to put down these frauds, alike injurious 
to health, morals, and fair trade. 

The writer, desiring to present the case in as clear a light as possi- 
ble, and within reasonable limits, has selected from the mass of evi- 
dence before him that only which bears the unmistakable stamp of 
reliability and authenticity, and not nearly all of that. For the greater 
convenience of the reader, the work is divided mto various parts, as 
follows : 

(1) A notice of the work done by the Department of Agriculture. 

(2) Extracts from reports of various State authorities and sanitary 
bodies. 

(3) The necessity for inspection of animals intended for food both be- 
fore and after slaughter. 

(4) Public opinion. Extracts, etc., together with a list of adulter- 
ants used as far as obtainable. 

(5) A list of anti-adulteration laws and where to be found. 

Unless Congress takes steps to remedy this evil of debasing and 
adulterating our food and other products our export trade is certain to 
be seriously and disastrously affected, and among the many important 
matters of legislation, that the next Congress will be required to act 
upon, there will be none more important than that of legislation for the 
prevention of food adulteration and the misbranding of food products. 

The bills reported to the Fiftieth Congress by the Agricultural Com- 
mittee cover to a great extent the question of live-stock investigation, 
and as this question has been coupled with the other, I submit a paper 
on this subject which forcibly presents the necessity for this inspection. 

No legislation, unsupported by public opinion, is really effective, hence 
I have collected and submit as fair an expression of public opinion upon 
this question as space and time would permit. Such expressions will 
be found in Part 4. 

During the process of the work confided to me, I have necessarily 
accumulated a mass of evidence from the principal sources already in- 
dicated, which it is unnecessary and perhaps useless to include within the 
limits of this report. It has been necessary to confine myself to that 
which iu my judgment seemed to be sufficient to clearly prove the 
widespread existence and the dangerous tendency, from a sanitary, 
commercial, and also from a moral point of view, of this adulteration and 
debasing of the food and drink supply of the entire country, as well as 
of medical and remedial agents. The writer, however, is impelled to 
state before presenting his conclusions, from the evidence in his posses- 



12 

sion, that it lias been a matter of no little difficulty to confine himself 
strictly, in making this report, to the judicial and impartial terms which 
its character seemed to require. It would be quite impossible, for the most 
conservative and moderate of men, to go through the evidence perused by 
him during the past few months, without being frequently provoked to 
almost uncontrollable expressions of reprobation, at the overwhelming 
evidence of fraud, on the part of persons enjoying no little degree of 
social and commercial prestige among their neighbors. A reckless dis- 
regard of the laws of health, and of the moral law seems to characterize 
a large number of manufacturers of and dealers in products which of 
all others ought to be pure and nutritious. 

Such evidence as the writer presents in the other portions of this 
report are, in his opinion, amply sufficient to justify the following con- 
clusions : 

That, in view of the extensive and increasing adulteration, misbrand- 
ing, and debasing of food, liquors, and drugs, and in view of the fact 
that such practices can not be entirely and effectually regulated by 
State laws, owing to the numerous complications arising from inter- 
state commerce, it becomes, therefore, necessary, that State laws should 
be supplemented by national law on this subject. 

That such national legislation is demanded not only by the State au- 
thorities, but by public opinion. 

That the consumers of our food products peremptorily, and very justly, 
demand absolute protection from the evil practices of many manufact- 
urers and dealers, and that wherever the State law can not give such 
absolute protection, adequate national legislation should be provided. 

That, in addition to the interstate commerce feature which must nec- 
essarily be regulated by national legislation, it is well understood that 
no other than national legislation can meet the exigencies of our ex- 
port trade, which, without the protection of efficient national laws, will 
certainly and rapidly dwindle into insignificance in the face of a grow- 
ing and most unfortunate reputation, which obtains in foreign coun- 
tries in regard to our food products, owing to the prevalence of the, 
practices referred to and the want of an adequate system of national 
inspection of all goods intended for export. 

To enumerate all those to whom the writer is indebted for many 
courtesies and practical aid in the pursuance of his work would be im- 
possible, but he can not close his report without special mention of Pro- 
fessor Sharpless and Mr. W. W. Kimball, of Boston, and the Hon. F. 
B. Thurber, of New York, whose public-spirited interest in this work 
has been as unremitting as it has been valuable. 

Respectfully submitted. 

Alex. J. Wedderbuen, 

Special Agent. 



REPORTS OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
ON FOOD ADULTERATIONS. 

The chemist of the Department, Dr. H. W. Wiley, is publishing in 
Bulletin No. 13 an exhaustive study of food adulterations and meth- 
ods for- their detection. 

Five parts of this bulletin have already been issued, viz : Part first, 
Dairy products ; part second, Spices and condiments ; part third, Fer- 
mented liquors ; part fourth, Lard and lard adulterants, and part fifth, 
Baking powders. 

Other parts are in preparation, viz, Tea, coffee and chocolate ; Sugar, 
molasses, honey and condiments ; Flour and bread ; Canned goods, etc. 
These bulletins can be obtained by application to the Secretary of Ag- 
riculture. 

STATE AND MUNICIPAL REPORTS. 

The people of the country have good reason to congratulate them- 
selves upon the character and ability of the gentlemen who have been 
selected as food inspectors and commissioners in the few States that 
have enacted laws regulating the sale and manufacture of adulterated 
and misbranded articles of diet. 

When we consider the small salaries paid these officials, and the tre- 
mendous wealth arrayed against them, and the small amount of money 
placed at their disposal, it is truly remarkable that they have achieved 
such good results. Nearly every caso undertaken against the fraudu- 
lent manipulators of food products has ended in a triumph for honesty 
and a vindication of the laws. Such clear cases of adulteration, mis- 
branding, and selling of diseased and putrid meat have been brought 
before our courts in Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, and Ohio 
as plainly show the necessity for national and State legislation to protect 
the people of the country, not alone from gigantic commercial frauds, 
but to preserve the health of our population and enable honest dealers 
to live while doing a legitimate and honest business. It is utterly use- 
less for the writer to compile a report containing all the matter accu- 
mulated by him in the course of his investigation, and were he to 
attempt it the result would be a publication entirely too bulky for the 
consideration of the committee of Congress to whom it is to be sub- 
mitted. 

The extracts herewith submitted are presented merely as a few of 
many similar facts and arguments in favor of national legislation, nec- 

13 



14 

essary to protect an honest man in doing an honest business, and to 
enable the consumer to secure exactly what he asks for, pays for, and 
has a right to get. 

MASSACHUSETTS. 

The State of Massachusetts has very carefully investigated the ques- 
tion of food adulterations, and has probably the fullest and most com- 
plete laws upon the subject in this country. I glean from the " Manual 
for the use of Boards of Health of Massachusetts," that there are not 
only general laws looking to the prevention of adulteration, sophistica- 
tion, and misbranding and' the sale of diseased, tainted, and under-age 
meats, but special laws relating to the sale of oleomargarine and other 
butter and cheese imitations, vinegar, milk, and lard. The general laws 
relate to the adulteration and sophistication of drugs, food, liquor, and 
provide for the inspection of meats. They provide for fines and im- 
prisonments, but also rely upon publication of the misdeed as a strong 
preventive. The bill in many of its provisions is similar to House bill 
11266, introduced by Mr. Laird in the last Congress and reported favor- 
aby from the Committee on Agriculture. 

Dr. S. W. Abbott, secretary of the State board of health, in the sixth 
annual report of the Massachusetts board of health makes the following 
statement : 

The principal articles liable to adulteration are milk, butter, spices, vinegar, cream 
of tartar, and various sorts of drugs. The value of these articles specified, afc present 
consumed in the State, may be stated in round numbers at $15,000,000 annually. 

It may safely be stated that the enforcement of the statutes has resulted in a sav- 
ing to the consumers of at least 5 per cent, of this amount, or $750,000, a sum equal 
to seventy-five times the amount expended in the enforcement of the laws. 

REPORT ON ADULTERATION. 

The result of Dr. Wood's analysis for 1886, as reported to the Mas- 
sachusetts board of health, pages 109, 110, 111, show the following 
adulterations : 

Coffee essences. — Two samples, consisting largely of chicory, burnt 
starch, and caramel. 

Molasses. — Sixty-eight samples examined with special reference to 
presence of tin. In 33 samples tin was found. 

Honey. — Out of 7 samples 5 were adulterated with cane sugar and 
glucose. 

Baking powders. — Five samples, analyzed for alum and all found to 
contain it. 

Cream of tartar. — Eighty-four samples examined, 64 of which con- 
tained less than 6 per cent, of impurity. Twenty were adulterated with 
flour, terra alba, or other foreign substances varying in extent from 10 
to 82 per cent. 

Mustard. — Forty-six samj)les, 20 genuine, 26 adulterated. 



15 

White pepper. — Fourteen samples examined, of which only 7 were 
genuine. The adulterants were wheat, rice, and ginger. 

BlaeTc pepper. — Sixty-two samples examined, 37 genuine and 25 
adulterated. The adulterants used were chiefly wheat, rice, and corn. 

Cayenne. — Four examined, 2 adulterated. 

Mace. — Two samples examined, both adulterated. 

Cassia. — Examined 13, all genuine but 1. 

Cloves. — Examined 12, all of fair quality. 

Ginger. — Examined 54, of which 45 were genuine and 9 adulterated. 
The adulterants were wheat, rice, and corn. 

TIN POISON IN MOLASSES. 

Thirty- three cases of adulteration of molasses with salts of tin are 

cited in Dr. Wood's report for 1886. Speaking of this article Dr. Abbott 

says, page 84 : 

It was also found by experiment that the same salt was exceedingly poisonous 
when administered to animals in moderate doses, one-fourth to one-half grain pro- 
ducing symptoms of acute poisoning, followed by death in a few minutes, the drug be- 
ing administered in various modes, both in solid form and in solution. The lesion of 
internal organs caused by the ingestion of the poison were well marked, the stom- 
ach especially presenting the appearance caused by an active corrosive poison. The 
substance was also detected in the liver. 

Of 1,468 samples of food (including milk) and drugs examined in 
Massachusetts for the four months ending September 30, 1886, 926 were 
found good quality, and 542 not conforming to statutes. It will be found 
from this that even after the continued enforcement of the anti-adultera- 
tion laws from 1882, when food laws were just enacted, that there still 
remained in 1886 over one-third of the products examined "not con- 
forming to the statutes." 

RELATIVE TO CALVES. 

It is unlawful in Massachusetts to kill or sell any calf under four 
weeks old, and when such veal is found it must be destroyed. The 
penalty for knowingly selling such a calf is imprisonment not to exceed 
six months and a fine not to exceed $200, or both. 

NEW YORK. 

I am greatly indebted to Mr. Lewis Balch, secretary of the State board 
of health, for their valuable reports and the promptness and courtesy 
with which they were sent. These reports extend through a series of 
years, and are not only comprehensive but exhaustive. 

I find the following in the reports (on page 20, report of 1888) : 

The analyst of food has examined a considerable number of largely- employed food 
articles and accessories and has pointed out various fraudulent practices which should 
be suppressed. Fortunately most of the common sophistications are such as to affect 
the pocket of the consumer: more than they injure the health, but they are none the 
less to be condemned. 



16 

From the same report we take the following extracts as showing the 
extent of adulterations in food and drugs in the State of New York, as 
shown by the highest official authority. The report of Prof. S. A. Lat- 
timore, public analyst, State board of health, New York, shows the 
result of 60 analyses, 14 of which were pure and 46 adulterated, the 
adulterations being — 

Black pepper . 3 

White pepper „„„.. 2 

Cream of tartar 41 

The conclusions reached by the professor are worthy of note. He 
says on page 60, report 1888 : 

In the great majority of cases it has been fouud that care and intelligence are exer- 
cised, and as the amount of capital required to maintain such a business with profit 
is very considerable, the proprietors fully appreciate the importance of securing a 
high reputation for the excellence and purity of their products. The fact that the State 
exercises a supervision over such matters is doubtless not without silent but salutary influence* 

It is, however, in the minor food articles, which are far more costly, but are con- 
sumed in smaller quantities, that adulterations are chiefly practiced. The chief rea- 
sons for this, besides the relatively high cost of tbe raw material, are, that as the 
necessary machinery is inexpensive the manufacture is often carried on in a small 
way, and the very common practice of selling such goods to retail dealers in bulk de- 
stroys all means of tracing them to tiie manufacturer, who makes no effort to estab- 
lish a reputation, and who even attempts to palliate his dishonest practice by tbe 
claim that the substitutes which he employs are harmless, and that he is compelled 
to'pursue such a course because his competitors do.* 

Of 48 analyses made by Professor Lattimore of useful household arti- 
cles only 7 were pure, the remaining 41 containing starch, terra alba, 
superphosphate of lime, in combination with cream of tartar, while 30 
of the total contained not a particle of cream of tartar, but consisted of 
tartaric acid and starch, terra alba, superphosphate of lime, alum, and 
starch, in various combinations. 

Regarding spices, this gentleman says : 

While many manufacturers send out under their own names ground spices free 
from all foreign substances and of excellent quality, and find an increasing apprecia- 
tion of their goods, yet the markets are still flooded with articles of poor quality, 
originally and largely mixed with any convenient rubbish which can be manipu- 
lated into the semblance of the genuine article. Fortunately for the victimized pur- 
chaser, the substitutes by the dishonest spice-grinder, however unsuited for food, and 
often repulsive in character, are not. positively poisonous. 

CANNED PEAS AND BEANS. 

The principal complaint in these articles is that sulphate of copper 
has been used so extensively for the purpose of greening that they are 
exceedingly dangerous. As far as I can learn the German, French, 
and English Governments do not prohibit the use of this article for 
this purpose. Prof. 1. Ogden Doremus, M. D., LL. D., professor of 
chemistry and toxicology, Bellevue Hospital, New York, in writing to 
Mr. Jas. P. Smith, says that " this method of greening is not injuri- 
ous to health," and adds that Pasteur, Bronardel, Galippe, Gauthier, 

* The italics are mine. 



17 

Proust, Gallard, Honnerkopf, Stubenrauck, Bademacher, Muller von 
Pforzheim, and others after careful investigation proved that the small 
amount ot copper used in canned vegetables is not hurtful. (See page 
410 of New York State Board of Health for 1887.) 

RECOMMENDING FEDERAL LAWS. 

Frederick Carman, assistant secretary of the board of health, on 
page 419, report 1887, makes the following recommendations: 

(1) The laws should be amended so as to define the normal constituents of malt 
beers and malt beverages. 

(2) That a malt beverage should, as its name indicates, contain only malt and 
hops with their constituents and water. 

(3) That Congress should pass a law making it obligatory upon the Internal Reve- 
nue Department at all times to permit publicity to be given to the ingredients re- 
puted to it by the brewers and distillers as having been purchased from which to 
brew or distill. 

VINEGAR. 

In 1886 the public analyst examined 74 samples of vinegar : 14.8 per 
cent, contained 5 per cent, or over of absolute acetic acid, and 63, or 
85.2 per cent., contained less than 5 per cent., and therefore fell below 
the legal requirement. 

There are numerous vinegars which may be equally as good as cider 
vinegar,- but, in the language of the New York report, page 371 — 

While vinegar made from spirits or other wine may be equally wholesome, it ought 
not to he sold for cider vinegar, as is very frequently the case. An article so largely used 
in the preparation of food as vinegar ought to be both free from adulteration and 
of good strength as'well, but the results of the examinations so far made show that 
here as, elsewhere wide differences in quality exist. The addition of mineral acids is 
very uncommon, but much vinegar is sold which has been plentifully watered, and 
the greater part of that sold as cider vinegar is a so-called white- wine vinegar, col- 
ored by caramel, with perhaps some cider vinegar added to give it flavor. 

The New York law requires a standard of 4.5 per cent, of acetic acid 
in vinegar. 

OTHER FOOD PRODUCTS. 

[See page 429 in report of Dr. Lattimore for 1887.] 

Of 376 articles of diet in daily use in every household 255, or more 
than two-thirds, were adulterated. Of 205 samples of so-called cream 
of tartar analyzed, only 53 were unadulterated. Among the adulter- 
ated samples were found oxalic acid and terra alba (white earth), terra 
alba and starch. The quantity of this poisonous acid was about 5 per 
cent. In referring to manipulated spices, Dr. Lattimore says (page 425) : 

The articles used for the purposes of adulterations are extremely numerous. Most 
farinaceous substances which have become damaged and unsalable may by skillful 
roasting and grinding be rendered serviceable by the "spice mixer." Many other 
articles which might be included under the general rubbish, by suitable manipula- 
tion may be transformed into mixtures which closely resemble the various spices in 
color and appearance, lacking only a little seasoning with the smallest possible quan- 
tity of the real article to give the characteristic odor and fit them for the market, 

12563-Buil 25 -2 



18 

It would be interesting, did space permit, to go more fully into detail 
so as to show a comparison of various adulterations after the enactment 
of the anti-adulteration statutes in New York State, but this can not be 
done here, and my observations lead me to conclude that the failure to 
enact Federal laws render the local laws to a great extent ineffectual, 
and inoperative. 

NECESSITY FOE PUBLICATION. 

The failure to make public all adulterations makes the practice more 
common than under a system by which the manipulator understood that 
his practices would be thoroughly published. 

DRUGS. 

Prof. W. Gr. Tucker, in his report (page 250, report 1888) shows the 
result of 326 samples of various drugs, as follows : 

Good quality 140, or 43.0 per cent. 

Fair quality ! . . ... 44, or 13.3 per cent. 

Inferior 79, or 24. 2 per cent. 

Not as called for 63, or 19. 3 per cent. 

The latter 63 samples, designated "not as called for," show simply 
the fairness of the examiner, as, while containing adulterants, benefit of 
the doubt is given to the compounder or seller, whether the article was 
sold through ignorance or mistake. The fact established is that out of 
326 samples examined only 140 were pure, and 79 came under the head- 
ing of " inferior," which the writer says is used in the report to desig- 
nate articles " if not clearly adulterated or falsified, lacking in any im- 
portant constituent, deficient in strength from improper manufacture, 
partial or complete decomposition, orother causes, or containing undue 
amount of impurity." 

It was shown that in the purchase of samples great care was taken 
in each and every instance, a written order was tendered, which order 
gave in full the official names of the articles called for and the amounts 
desired. 

In closing his report Professor Tucker says : 

That the work done during the past two years has had a decided effect in improv- 
ing the quality of drugs sold throughout the State, there can be no doubt, and if man- 
ufacturers, dealers, and others interested will co-operate with the board in the efforts 
it is making to raise the standard of the drugs and medical preparations now upon 
the market, the desired end can be obtained without interfering with any legitimate 
business industry, or embarrassing dealers by a too rigid or oppressive enforcement 
of the law. 

QUININE, MORPHINE, AND IRON. 

In the report to board of health, New York, October 31, 1887, by Prof. 
G. C. Caldwell, speaking of the assays made in morphine, quinine, and 
iron pills, he says : 

By the methods used, giving every fair advantage to the dealer, few of the nior- 
phiue pills came up to the standard. 



19 

There was ail improvement in the standard of quinine pills. The 
citrate of iron and quinine is often below the standard and the quality 
of the sulphate is usually poor. Druggists who have been warned to 
cease selling certain brands of alkaloidal preparations found to be seri- 
ously deficient in quality, complain that they do not know where to go 
for their supplies, especially since houses of wide reputation not infre- 
quently send out such deficient goods, and it appears to them that the 
board of health should go at once to the wholesale dealer with its 
warnings. 

The result of the analyses made by Professor Caldwell show : Sul- 
phate of quinine, 14 samples, only 2 of which did not contain foreign 
substances ; citrate of quinine and iron, 16 samples, of which only 3 
were free from adulterants j pills of sulphate of quinine, 58 samples, 
28 of which contained more or less adulteration ; pills of sulphate of 
morphine, 28 samples, not one of which was up to the standard claimed. 

COMMERCIAL AND HEALTH FRAUDS IN BROOKLYN. 

The result of the laboratory work of the Brooklyn Bureau of Health 
offers conclusive evidence that the position taken elsewhere, that food 
products are adulterated much more largely than 5 per cent, is correct. 
In presenting a partial table of the results obtained, it is right to quote 
what the Commissioner says (page 66) : 

There are large numbers of adulterations practiced with little if any attempt at 
secrecy which we have not been called upon to investigate. 

Had these commercial frauds been examined doubtless the per cent- 
age shown would have been much greater. 

[Pages 69 and 70 of the report for 1885.] 



j a: 

C I 
r—* 

• P< 

° s 

rM to 


Articles. 


Adulterations. 


95 




94 with tin, 34 with copper. 

4.5 ragm. tin, 13.5 mgm. lead, 30 mgm. copper. 

Both tin and copper. 

Poor quality. 

With gelatine. 


1 


Tomatoes 


2 


do 


1 


Gelatine 


1 




24 


Milk 


7 


Batter 




r 


Condensed cream. 


Not good. 

Skimmed before evaporated, 

5 partly skimmed. 

1.8 mgms. copper and 1 with 14 mgms. copper. 

3 copper. 


2 


Evaporated milk 


7 


Condensed milk 


2 


Pickles 


4 


do 


1 


Whisky 


3 


Beer- 


All zinc and copper. 

All copper, lead, and zinc. 


3 


Ale 


1 


Cocoanut candy 


92 


Candy . 




18 


Candy colors 




7 


Cream of tartar 


Impure. 

1 adulterated. 


2 


Pepper 


3 




Consisted mostlv of arsenic. 


8 


Soda water 


2 contained traces of copper. 
Colored with cardinal. 


1 


Fruit syrup 


3 


Lemon syrup from metal tank 


Contained tin and antimony. 









20 

Some artificial jellies have been sold in Brooklyn which are made 
from gelatine, sugar, artificial flavoring extracts, cochineal, or analine 
red. 

The following articles were found In products purchased of Brooklyn 
Polishing Companies : 

French chalk (white) also soapstono or talc, is a silicate of magnesia. 

Gum arahic. 

Charcoal, from wood. 

Drop black, animal charcoal, or burnt bones. 

Yellow ochre. A mixture of clay and hydrated oxide of iron. 

Venetian red. A. red earth, mostly oxide of iron and clay. 

Chrome orange. Chromate of lead, mixed earth, yellow ochre. Poisonous. 

Burnt umber. Differs very little from ochre in composition. 

Silesia blue. A mixture of ochre and Prussian blue. .Gives off cyanagen 

abundantly in heating. 
Turmeric. The powdered root of curcuma Tonga. 
Indigo and iDdigo extract. (This latter is a sulphate of indigo and indigo 

carmine. ) 
Persian berries, with ochre, giving a grayish-green colored pigment. 

Of these the Commissioner (page 121) says chrome orange and silesia 
blue are poisonous. Of the remaining colors he says : 

While not so injurious, they are used to deceive the public, and should be regarded 
as adulterations. 

On the examination of twenty samples of coffee, polished, purchased 
on the open market, lead was found to adhere to the beau in consider- 
able quantities, and the use of lead and Prussian blue is shown to be 
common. 

Alum aud sal-soda are added to the Persian berries to make a beau- 
tiful lake color. This separated, aud mixed with indigo gives an olive 
green. 

In addition to this system of polishing, I learn that coffee is so manip- 
ulated as to extract the essential oils and essences from the bean, which 
is sold as coffee, while the essences are manufactured in extracts, and 
sold as such. 

Another method of adulteration is to take the shriveled beans and 
soak them in sea-water, which " plumps" the berry and deceives the 
public into buying a poor article of coffee for a good one. 

The natural sequence is that if you desire a fine grade of coffee you 
will avoid the highly polished, colored and plumped grains, and pur- 
chase the poorest looking coffee you can find. 

BOLOGNA SAUSAGE COLOR. 

Color is an essential in selling many of the articles of food offered 
upon the market and we not only have "butter color" and milk color, 
but copper in various ways is used to " green" beans, peas, and pickles, 
but the Brooklyn health department has discovered a coloring for 
Bologna sausage composed of salt, saltpeter, borax, alum, and Venetian 
red, The harinfalness of this mixture consists in its ability to deceive 



21 

the purchaser into purchasing stale, partially decomposed, or tainted 
meats, which should cause its use to be prohibited. 

TIN AND LEAD IN CANNED GOODS. 

The Brooklyn chemist finds the presence of lead and tin in large 
quantities in unsealed cans and tin pails, while in hermetically sealed 
cans the tin and lead does not seem to be affected to any considerable 
extent when deprived of the air, but as shown here the case is quite 
different. (See report 1885, page 134.) 

COLORING MATTER IN FOOD. 

The vermacelli manufacturers not only use poor flour and whiten it 
with pipe-clay or kaoline, but the absence of eggs is supplied by saffron, 
tumeric, and chromate of lead. The practice of the use of chrome yel- 
low has decreased materially since inspection has given publicity to the 
practice in New York State. Aniline red or fuchsin was found to be 
used in coloring head cheese. 

Speaking of these practices the Brooklyn report says (p. 132) : 

The manufacturer colors his meats to please a public taste for a bright red color, 
but when the public learn that such meat may be colored with harmful colors, while 
the meat itself is the worst salable meat in the market, the manufacturer will not be 
called upon to practice it. Aniline red is in itself an objectional color, because many- 
samples in the market contain arsenic. 

The supposably wholesome and toothsome licorice drops given the 
children for colds are said to be made from the candy factory sweep- 
ings, and are apt to contain a good deal of foreign substances as well 
as dirt. Several cases of sickness have been reported from their con- 
sumption. 

Pickle greening is a source of poisoning that all know of, and few pay 
any regard to the addition of copperas. All the American eater seems to 
care for, is that the article be pleasant to the eye and pleasant to the 
palate .; whether it be wholesome is not taken into consideration. 

The Brooklyn health commission says the proper dose of sulphate 
of copper is from one quarter to 2 grains, while in "greened" pickles 
analyzed three small pickles contained the full medicinal dose and 5 
grains was contained m one-quarter pound. On page 110 an interest- 
ing case is cited, that of Maggie Martin, a little girl, who was killed fey 
eating a part of one large pickle greened with sulpate of copper. 

Dr. E. H. Bartley, chief chemist of the Brooklyn health department, 

in his report for 1887, speaking of the result of the inspection of meats, 

vegetables, and other food products, says : 

Although it can not be claimed that all improper articles of food have been de- 
tected it is certain that fewer complaints of sickness having resulted from various 
kinds of foods have reached us during the past year than any year since 1833. 

The cause of this decrease the doctor ascribes not only to the work s 

of his department, but to the fact of the education of the people to seek 



22 

better goods, which induced dealers to comply with the demand. He 
adds that he is convinced that the responsibility rests upon the people 
who are so ready to protest against adulteration. He says : 

There can be no other reason given for the wholesale use of colors in the prepara- 
tion of confectionery, pastry, ice-cream, green peas, pickles, macaroni, milk, butter, 
coffee, tea, etc., than that the public demand them. (Dr. Bartley's report page 33, 
1887.) 

Not less than ten or twelve of these colors used in these various foods have been 
condemned and their use prohibited. During the past few months one large con- 
fectionery factory was found to be using two poisonous colors. One macaroni factory 
in this city was found to be using Martin's yellow or triniter napthaline, to impart a 
rich color, in imitation of the color imparted by eggs. The same poisonous color was 
found iu another factory, but there was no evideuce that it had been used. This color 
is sold under the name of artificial saffron and other trade names to conceal its iden- 
tity. The demand for these yellow-colored foods has repeatedly led to the use of 
chrome yellow and other poisonous colors.* 

Dr. Bartley pertinently remarks: 

It is not enough to'say that the amount of these poisonous colors used is too small 
to do harm. Any amount of a poison is too much to be allowed to be used for human 
food, especially when it is to be administered by an ignorant servant or careless work- 
man. 

He cites a case of a family receiving a sample of pistachio ice-cream 

by Bretnis Green, and flavored with bitter almonds. On the subject of 

the poisonous creams Dr. Bartley says (page 34) : 

It seems difficult to suppose that an ordinary palate or stomach could be deluded 
into the idea that it was receiving strawberry ice-cream because the latter contained 
some red aniline and amyl ethers. A very small amount of fusel oil (amylic alcohol) 
in a whisky is popularly regarded as very detrimental to the health of the con- 
sumers, while a plate of some kinds of ice-cream or a glass of soda-water frequently 
contains more fusel oil than five glasses of poor whisky. 

Speaking of soda, an interesting paper can be found on pages 51 and 
52 of the New Jersey dairy commissioner's report for 1888, in which 
analysis showed the presence of lead, copper, zinc, aud tin. The com- 
missioner recommends that the use of bottles whose stoppers consist, of 
" a loop of coated brass wire and a tin button containing lead with a 
rubber belt be prevented." 

Dr. Bartley, in referring to the coloring of peas, beans, etc., with 

copper, says the board of health had legalized them under certain 

conditions, viz, that copper not to exceed three-quarters of a grain to the 

avoirdupois pound of peas or beans, equivalent to 3 grains of crystallized 

sulphate of copper, and that it should be plainly stated on the label. 

The regulations of the board, both as to labeling and amount of copper 

used, it seems were frequently violated, even by the very parties who 

instigated the regulations. 1 am glad to add that Dr. Bartley secured 

the conviction of two parties brought to trial for violation of the rules 

of the board. 

[When it is recollected that these colored and poisonous vegetables are brought 
into direct competition with the product of our market gardeners, and not only 

* See Keport of Philadelphia Board of Health, referred to elsewhere. 



23 

depreciate the price of our home product, but spread broadcast disease, and further, 
that they come principally from France, a country that excludes the hog product of 
our farmer, it seems reasonable to suppose that Congress would not hesitate to exclude 
the importation of these poisonous products. — Note by the special agent.] 

NEW JERSEY. 

The report of the dairy commissioner of New Jersey for 1888 cou tains 
much valuable information. Mr. William K. ISTewton, the commissioner, 
has prosecuted his work with a zeal and energy which deserves the 
thanks of the people of the whole country. His exposure of frauds can 
not fail to convince every intelligent reader of the necessity for strin- 
gent legislation. According to his report $1,100 have been paid into the 
State treasury in fines for violation of the oleo laws, while the penalties 
paid for violation of the milk laws have reached $550. 



FOODS. 



The following table of foods analyzed by the commissioner, with the 
results of such analysis, tells the story briefly but pointedly : 

Articles of food Examined. 



Article. 



Butter and oleomargarine 

Milk 

Lard 

American canned goods . . 
Imported canned goods . . 

Ground coffee 

Coffee essence 

Tea , 

Black pepper 

White pepper 

Cayenne pepper 

Mustard 

Cinnamon 

Cloves. 

Allspice 

Ginger 

Nutmeg 

Extracted honey 

Maple syrup 

Molasses 

Drips 

Vinegar 

Pickles 

Carbonated beverages .... 



Total. 
Per cent . . . 



Total. 



68 

12L 

141 

55 

16 

24 

1 

19 

28 

4 

3 

41 

20 

13 

8 

11 

2 

10 

9 

2 

1 

12 

7 

7 



623 



Pure or 
standard. 



24 
78 
80 
54 
5 



320 
51.36 



Adul- 
terated 
or not 
standard. 



44 
43 
61 
1 
11 



8 


16 




1 


19 




6 


22 


2 


2 


3 




1 


40 


7 


13 


3 


10 


2 


6 


8 


3 


2 




5 


5 


5 


4 


2 






1 


1 


11 


5 


2 




7 







303 
48.64 



The commissioner says : 

While the adulterants used are not surely harmful to health, they are always 
fraudulent, and deprive the purchaser of an amount of money equal to the amount of 
adulteration ; hence if the law can but restore to the people an amount equal to that 
of which they are defrauded by the adulteration, many times the sum appropriated 
for this work shall be returned to the pockets of our citizens. 

Four hundred and fifteen articles of drugs were analyzed ; of these 
nearly 50 per cent, were adulterated. 



24 

PURE LEAF LARD. 

The commissioner says that the probable amount of pure leaf lard 
prepared in New Jersey would not reach 1,000 pounds. 

TEA. 

Of tea he observes that : 

The results obtained show that, while there is no adulteration, there is large 
amount of inferior and debased tea sold in the State. The United States law pre- 
vents the importation of the adulterated article, but much that comes to this country 
is of very poor quality, having little of the flavor of the true leaf. 

SPICES. 

On the subject of spices he says : 

The following facts are deduced from the results of the investigations : (1) A few 
dealers put up nothing but absolutely pure spices, and every package examined bear- 
ng these dealers' names proved to be of excellent quality. (2) Several spice-mills 
and wholesale dealers put two grades on the market — one pure the other adulterated. 
(3) Many houses selling spices sell nothing but adulterated articles. (4) Spices sold 
in bulk are almost invariably adulterated. (5) The price paid the retailer is no 
guaranty of the quality. (6) The retail dealer and the consumer are jointly respon- 
sible for the adulteration — the former by encouraging the sale of cheap and impure 
articles, the latter in trying to get spices at a less price than will warrant the sale of 
pure articles. 

BAKING POWDERS. 

On this subject he says: 

The greater number of the inferior grades of bakingpow ders were only to be had 
at stores patronized by poor people, or those of moderate means, hence we are forced 
to believe that any fraud in these articles is perpetrated at the expense of those least 
able to bear it.* 

A baking powder should answer to all of the following requirements: (1) Itshould 
generate the maximum amount of gas. (2) It should contain no unhe.althful ingre- 
dients. (3) It should leave in the loaf no unhealthful residue. (4) The elements 
should be combined in such proiJortions that the residue is neutral in reaction. t 

BRANDT AND WHISKY. 

Of 43 samples of brandy analyzed 6 only answered to the tests re- 
quired by the United States Pharmacopea, and 37 were inferior. The 
report says : 

The difficulty of obtaining pure brandy of a proper age for medicinal use is very 
great. This is especially true of the imported article, while that made in California 
is, as a rale, of inferior quality and not sufficiently aged and bland to be used in cases 
of illness. The following statement, made in the United States Consular Reports, 
November, 1887, page 333, is interesting in this connection : 

" The term ' brandy ' seems to be no longer applied to a spirit produced by the fer- 
mentation of grapes, but to a complex mixture, the alcohol of which is derived from 
grain, potatoes, or, worst of all, the refuse of the beet-root refineries. It would seem 
to be fairly impossible at present to purchase a pure cognac, as each individual pro- 

* Report New Jersey Commissioner, page 54. 
t Ibid., page 57. 



25 

prietor of a vineyard has become a distiller and compounder. He has acquired the 
art of imitating any special flavor or vintage of brandy that may be called for. Po- 
tato spirits and beet alcohols, the most deleterious and obnoxious of all the varieties 
of spirits, are sent from Germauy into Frauce in vast quantities. They are flavored, 
colored, and branded or labeled to meet the wishes of American connoisseurs. The 
mere fact of coming out of bond, or ' straight through the custom-house,' is generally 
accepted here as sufficient evideuce that they are pure and genuine. It is rather un- 
fortunate that physicans themselves frequently strengthen this hallucination in favor 
of imported spirits by giving the most stringent orders to their patients to procure 
genuine French cognac, even though it may command tenfold the price of an abso- 
lutely pure spirit of domestic production. This imperative command becomes a cruel 
injustice in the case of poor patients. Under the best of circumstances, what is there 
to be gained by the use of French brandy in preference to pure domestic spirit ?" 

And, it may be added to this statement, if alcoholic stimulants are to be prescribed 
by the physician, let him first ascertain the source of the sample and acquaint him- 
self with the quality, origin, and ingredients. 

Of 15 samples of whisky, 3 only were equal to the requirements of 
the pharmacopoeia. 

OPIUM AND OTHER DRUGS. 

Of 42 samples examined only 8 were standard ; as previously stated, 
other drugs showed 55.66 per cent, of debased and adulterated arti- 
cles. 

OHIO REPORT. 

The following extracts taken from the report of the dairy and food 
commission of Ohio for 1887, speak for themselves and are submitted 
without comment. 

MAPLE SIRUP. 

Two fraudulentsamples analyzed. One contained 62 per cent, of maple 
sirup and 28 per cent, of glucose ; the other, 25 per cent, maple and 75 
per cent, of glucose sirup. One of the parties pleaded guilty and paid 
$500 fine. The other swore the goods were sold before the law was 
enacted, and was acquitted. 

VINEGAR. 

Commissioner Hurst, speaking of this article, says : 

The vile and hurtful compound manufactured from drugs and acids should be for- 
bidden a place in the trade, whether made within the State or without. And the 
"low wine" vinegars should be branded with their true name, and the coloring of 
such vinegar to simulate cider vinegar should be positively prohibited. Such an 
amended law would add $100,000 per year to the value of the Ohio apple crop and 
greatly promote the public health. 

BAKING POWDERS. 

Thirty samples were examined. The commissioner evidently tried to 
be impartial, as he issued a circular to the trade before purchasing the 
samples. His classification of the powders were as follows: First 



26 

quality, creaui of tartar powders ; second quality, phosphate powders $ 
third quality, alum powders. 
The analysis resulted as follows : 

First quality, cream of tartar 8 

Second quality, phosphate... ..' -. 2 

Third quality, alum 20 

ORANGE CIDER. 

An article claimed to be pure orange juice was found on sale as 
orange cider, and upon analysis proved to be only " sweetened water, 
sharpened up with citric and tartaric acids and flavored with the oil or 
extract of orange." The cost was about 16 cents. It was retailed at 
$2.50 a gallon. 

The sale of this product reached very large proportions, but in ten 
days after the fraud had been published the whole business collapsed. 
(See page 14, Ohio D. Eeport.) 

In many lines of food and drink products, however, the evils can only 
be ended by national liaws and by the establishment of a national com- 
mission, which can reach the great manufactories, refineries, rectifying 
establishments, spice-mills, etc., and have supervision of all the 
channels of commerce and trade without the obstructions and limita- 
tions of State lines. 

Mr. John J. Geghan, assistant dairy and food commissioner for Ohio, 

in his report says : 

A great amount of baking powder sold in our market is not fit for food, and should 
be condemned as injurious to health. There is such a competition among the manu- 
facturers of this so-called baking powder that with each bill of this stuff, which 
they sell to retail grocers, they give a large amount of glassware, which is offered as 
an inducement to the purchasers. This is a nefarious scheme and should not be 
countenanced by the public. But it seems the public likes to be humbugged ; rea- 
soning sense ought to teach us that the manufacturer of baking powder can not afford 
to give glassware as a present to each customer unless he makes up for the cost 
of the glassware by the high price he receives for his worthless stuff. Baking 
powder is used extensively, and the ingredients entering into its composition should 
be pure and healthy. Alum, an injurious mineral, is substituted for cream of tartar, 
a vegetable substance, so as to cheapen the cost to the manufacturer of the so-called 
baking powder. If the manufacturer is honest he should discontinue the custom of 
offering prizes as an inducement to the people to buy his worthless goods, and use in 
the manufacture of baking powder good and healthy substances. 

Mr. Geghan, it will be seen, pronounces alum an unhealthy mineral. 
Commissioner Hurst, in his circular heretofore alluded to, on page 8 
says : 

Pure alum is undoubtedly a hurtful salt, and the resultant salts from its combina- 
tion with soda.can scarcely be less hurtful. 

And yet this is a question about which tl doctors disagree," and any 
number of conflicting opinions and certificates can be had from emi- 
nent chemists on either side of this question. 

The official investigation of this class of baking powders made in 



27 

England to test their health fulness resulted in their favor. But this 
conclusion rested upon the statement of the chemists that the resultant 
salt of hydrate of aluminum remaining in the bread was insoluble, and 
hence unhurtful when taken into the stomach. But some of the ablest 
chemists of this country declare that hydrate of aluminum is quite 
soluble, and hence is as hurtful as the alum in other forms. So that 
the question is still an open one to be determined by further careful 
scientific investigation. 

Dr. Hassall says of alum : 

" Fiither alum is very apt to disorder the stomach arid to occasion acidity and dys- 
pepsia." 

The New Jersey food commission says : 

Our investigations sbow that while especially the higher grades of cream of tartar 
and acid phosphate of lime powders are maintained at a quite uniform standard of 
excellence, the State is flooded also with many baking powders of very poor qual- 
ity — cheap goods, poorly made. Of the thirty-nine brands examined, twenty-five 
contain alum or its equivalent, in the shape of some soluble alumina compound ; eight 
are cream of tartar powders, with small quantities of other ingredients in several 
cases; four are acid phosphate of lime powders; two belong properly under none of 
the above classes. ■ 

With one exception, the powders containing alum all fall below the average strength 
of the cream of tartar powders, and in the majority of cases they fall much below the 
better grades of the cream of tartar powders. 

In the cream of tartar and the acid phosphate of lime powders no indications of 
substances likely to be injurious to health, in the quantities used, have been found. 

There appears to be ample ground for requiring that the makers of baking powders 
should publish the ingredients used in their powders, in order that the consumer, 
who may justly have doubts of the desirability of using certain kinds, may be pro- 
tected. At present the only guaranty of an undoubtedly wholesome and efficient 
article appears to be the name of the brand. 

Referring to Dr. Mallet's experiments, he says: 

He regards it as a fair conclusion that not only alum itself, but the residues which 
its use in baking powder leaves in bread, cannot be viewed as harmless, but must be 
ranked as objectionable, and should be avoided when the object aimed at is the pro- 
duction of wjiolesome bread. 

These experiments of Professor Mallet are conducted in the right way, and his con- 
clusions are entitled to great weight. We might quote the decided opinions of 
many scientific men against the use of alum baking powders, but with the preceding 
facts before us this phase of the question may be left. 

DAIRY PRODUCTS. 

Of dairy products Mr. Geghan says : 

The consumers of oleomargarine — and they consist generally of the indu.strial or 
working classes — by using fraudulent articles of food, are compelled to pay 20 cents 
a pound for a mixture of lard and tallow that can be purchased in their original 
state for 5 cents a pound. It should be driven out of the markets as an unhealthy 
article of food. Surely it is more economical for the housewife to pay 25 cents, or 
even 30 cents, for pure creamery butter than to pay 25 cents a pound for tallow or lard. 

There is a principle involved in a manufacture of oleomargarine which should sep- 
arate it entirely from the question of cheap butter. Let this oleomargarine take the 
place entirely of butter made wholly from cream, and we immediately curtail our 
beef supply, an article of food which the American people, more than any other 



28 

nationality, use so much of, owing to its nutritious quality; because in order to 
manufacture oleomargarine you must first kill the animal to get in part the neces- 
sary ingredients, and thereby create a. scarcity of the beef-producing species. 

If we repudiate the artificial and use only the pure article we encourage the farmer 
to raise more cows. The more cows he raises the greater will be the supply of beef, 
pure milk, butter, cream, and cheese. No farmer will undertake to raise or propa- 
gate these species of cattle unless he can realize a profit by so doing. 

Mr. Geghan estimates the loss to the farmers of the country by the 
manufacture of oleomargarine to be for 1886 $70,000,000. 

In spite of the United States oleomargarine law it would seem that 
the profits are so great in selling oleomargarine for butter, that un- 
scrupulous men are constantly tempted to sell it, and I am sure that 
in many of the smaller cities of the country, some not far from the 
national capital, oleomargarine is openly sold in violation of Federal 
statute. In confirmation of this idea I find that even in Ohio, with its 
vigorous State officers, alert and watchful, ready to enforce the State 
laws and aid in the enforcement of the internal-revenue laws, the pro- 
visions of the oleomargarine bill are constantly violated, as well as that 
of the State laws relative to milk and cheese. 

Of 97 analyses of butter made by the chemist — one known to be gen- 
uine — 50 were adulterated, and only 46 genuine. Of 43 samples of milk 
analyzed, 7 were known to be pure ; of the remaining 36, representing 
milk sold in Columbus, 18 samples fell below the standard required by 
law. 

The law relative to skim-milk cheese seems to have been made to be 
broken in Ohio, but the prompt prosecution and conviction of the of- 
fenders, who pleaded guilty and paid fines of $50 each, seems to indicate 
that in the future the condition of cheese and of morals will both be 
healthier in Ohio. 

Full cream cheese in Ohio must mean something; it must mean exactly what it 
says after this, or you must repeal the present dairy laws and abolish the commis- 
sion. (Henry Talcotfc, assistant dairy commissioner for Ohio, page 32, report 87.') 

BEER ADULTERANTS. 

Dr. Win. Dickore, of Cincinnati, in a report of certain analyses made 
by him for the dairy and food commission (page 24), says : 

" Beer in its perfect condition is an excellent and healthful beverage, conferring in 
some measure virtues of water, wine, and of- food, as it quenches the thirst, stimulates, 
cheers, and strengthens." (Audrew Ure.) 

The above is the opinion of this great scientist. While most brewers certainly aim 
to produce beer of the best quality, still there are many others unscrupulous euough 
to substitute for the sake of cheaper production a very lar,i>e percentage of other 
grains for malt, and also other drugs, like quassia, aloes, peric acid, etc., in con- 
nection with artificial flavors, to replace the more expensive hops. I would like to 
state that even well-meaning brewers may make the mistake and use too many hops, 
which will produce an unwholesome beer. Beer should neither be too strong in alco- 
hol or be too highly hopped. While barley is (by practical experience of centuries) 
the most appropriate cereal to be used in brewing beer, still other kinds of grain, .as 
rice or corn, in very limited quantities, may be admitted in manufacturing certain 
kinds of beer. The proportions should however be regulated by law. 



29 

As a fraudulent adulteration corn stands in the same lino Avith the adulteration of 
beer as low wines stand in the adulteration of cider vinegar, and when used to ex- 
cess is more injurious to the system than any other kind of beer. 

WINE, 

The assistant food commissioner for Ohio says (page 29): 

The grape-growers of Ottawa county have had their industry ruined by the man- 
ufacture of bogus wine out of foreign substances, so that the demand for grapes for 
this purpose no longer exists to any great extent. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 

The committee on adulterations, poisons, etc., of the Pennsylvania 
legislature, speaking through their chairman, Dr. Pemberton Dudley 
(see page 90, report of the Board of Health of Pennsylvania), says: 

There can be no question, however, that the department of sauitary labor assigned 
to this committee is one of the most important that engages the attention of sani- 
tary airthorities. The adulterations of food and drugs are so numerous, so common, 
so universal, we might almost say, and at the same time so prejudicial to the health 
of our people, that constant watchfulness and omnipresent oversight alone can re- 
press and prevent them. 

Wherever competition prevails there we find the temptation to lower the standard 
of purity and strength of our food-stuffs and our medicinal preparations, and with the 
exception of the few that are protected by patents, this competition extends to all. 

Dr. L. Wolff, in an article on " Our Drugs and Medicines" (Pennsyl- 
vania Board of Health report, page 338), says: 

The use of pure drugs and medicines, properly compounded and administered, con- 
stitutes a most important feature for the preservation of health and the prevention of 
avoidable death. In all civilized countries it has been made the duty of the state to 
control and. supervise this through competeut officials and special laws. The harm 
arising from inert or impure drugs consists not only in defeating the end and object 
they are intended for, by admitting of the unchecked progress of the disease and the 
fatal consequences thereof, but also in their improper and poisonous admixtures, 
which make them destructive to life and health. Many of them possess powerful 
and toxic action, and consequently, when compounded and administered in improper 
quantities and doses, give rise to most disastrous results. 

And again: 

That there are annually a number of valuable lives sacrificed from this cause is as 
little to be doubted as that all the cases of suffering, illness, and death therefrom are 
certainly avoidable by proper knowledge, forethought, precaution, and legal super- 
vision. 

CHROME YELLOW POISONING-. 

In a pamphlet issued by the State Board of Health of Pennsylvania, 
in 1887, entitled a Clinical Analysis of sixty-four cases of poisoning by 
Lead Chromate (Chrome Yellow), used as a cake-dye and prepared by 
Dr. D. D. Stewart of Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia, we 
find the following conclusion: 

There is now no question, from recent developments, that the poisoning has been 
going on unsuspected iu various sections of the city for years. Since my attention has 
been directed to the matter I have been surprised, in looking over the mortuary records 
of the past few months, to see the large number of deaths returned as convulsions, 



30 



SLAUGHTER-HOUSE AND DAIRY INSPECTION. 

I will introduce this division of my report with a paper prepared at my 
request by Dr. D. E. Salmon, chief of the Bureau of Animal Industry, 
whose experience and familiarity with the subject especially qualify 
him to speak of it with authority. 

THE NECESSITY OF INSPECTING ANIMALS SLAUGHTERED FOR FOOD. 

The inhabitants of the United States are the greatest consumers of meat of any 
people in the world. They have developed this characteristic because nowhere else 
has the supply of meat been at the same time so abundant, so cheap, and of such 
superior quality. 

We find, however, that the conditious under which our food-producing animals are 
grown, marketed, and slaughtered have been rapidly changing, and that this change 
has greatly increased the desirability of government supervision over the trans- 
portation and slaughter of animals and the preparation of their flesh for human 
food. 

The necessity for such supervision was first felt in our export trade in pork products. 
Our trade with Germany and France had grown to large proportions. The Germans, 
from their habit of eating pork either raw or only partially cooked, were subject to 
periodical epidemics of trichiniasis, because the hogs of all countries are more or less 
affected with the parasite which causes this disease in people. To guard against 
such outbreaks of disease the German Government instituted a microscopic inspection 
of all hogs slaughtered in the Empire, so that those infested with trichinae might be 
discovered and condemned. Requiring such an inspection for their own hogs, they 
consider it admissible to prohibit the importation of pork products from other coun- 
tries where the same precautions are not enforced. 

In adopting this regulation it is true that they did not give sufficient weight to 
the fact that no trichiniasis had ever been produced in Germany by American pork 
or to the additional fact that the curing process to which all exported meats are sub- 
jected destroys this parasite when present. Notwithstanding these facts, the regula- 
tion was enforced and our trade was ruined. The agitation which occurred at this 
time was such that the Government of France was induced to enforce a similar pro- 
hibition, although with less justification, because there is no microscopic inspection 
in that country to exclude the products of their own trichinous hogs from consump- 
tion. 

Two of the greatest markets of the world being thus shut against our hog products, 
because of the alleged existence of trichinae, it is probable that this prohibition will 
not be withdrawn until our Government provides for an inspection from which it can 
guaranty that the meats packed under its supervision are free from this parasite. 
And this is the first reason for the development of a system of meat inspection. 

The change in the method of slaughtering by which this business is concentrated in 
a few centers, and the meat is shipped in cold storage to all parts of the country for 
sale, has developed the second great reason for national inspection. Under the old 
plan of killing in the vicinity where the meat was to be consumed the butcher was 
known by the consumer; he had a reputation to maintain, and he was subject to lo- 
cal laws and sanitary regulations. At present the identity of the butcher is lost in a 
distant packing center, where several firms carry on an enormous slaughtering busi- 
ness ; local butchers who dare to compete are ruined by the power of these great mo- 
nopolies ; the consumer has no recourse but to buy such meat as is furnished or to do 
without this necessary article of food. Local inspection laws are impotent to protect, 
because the animal must be seen before slaughter and the viscera must be examined 
when the carcass is dressed to make an inspection of any real value, This great change 



31 

in the method of slaughtering animals has made dressed meats an article of interstate 
commerce, and as such it has been withdrawn to a great extent from local regula- 
tions and should receive the supervision of the national authorities. 

The third great reason for a national inspection of slaughtering establishments is 
that of outbreaks of communicable diseases among live stock, which are dangerous 
to the property or health of our people should be promptly discovered and controlled. 
The most available and certain method by which this can be accomplished is the in- 
spection of all animals sent to the great slaughtering establishments of the country. 
Congress has already made large appropriations for the eradication of the contagious 
lung plague of cattle, and the known infected districts are under strict quarantine. 
But if the coutagiou in some way escapes the vigilance of the officers and the disease 
in spite of all provision for its discovery and suppression appears elsewhere in the 
country, the owner of affected animals may conceal his losses and ship his herd for 
slaughter. The animals are purchased by a large packing establishment; they are 
seen only by their irresponsible employe's, and no matter what lesions they show 
the Government is none the wiser. In this way consumers may be supplied with dis- 
eased meats, and the presence of a contagious disease may be successfully concealed. 
A thorough system of inspection would not only protect the consumer, but would re- 
veal the existence of a new center of contagion at the earliest moment and enable 
the Government to economically and effectually guard the food supply of the nation 
and its interstate and foreign commerce from the destructive influence of animal 
plagues. 

To protect the health and lives of its citizens is, or ought to be, one of the first ob- 
jects of any government, and there is no way in which more can be done in this direc- 
tion by our National Government than in protecting the food supply of the country. 
Heretofore this has been left to State and municipal regulations, and the power of the 
Federal Government has been felt in forcing articles into the several States, because 
such articles were the subjects of interstate commerce, rather than in supplementing 
the local authority for the protection of the consumer. And while it is right that 
interstate commerce should be protected, it is proper that it should be regulated for 
the benefit of the great mass of the people — the consumers — as well as to maintain 
the business of the smaller number — the shippers. 

The great importance of an inspection of animals slaughtered for food is apparent 
to the most superficial investigator. In many cities it is a well-known fact that ani- 
mals in a most disgusting and dangerous condition of disease may be and are regu- 
larly slaughtered for human food, and their carcasses go into consumption without 
let or hindrance. In a country where refinement and civilization have reached the 
development which we find in the United States the common instincts of humanity 
require that the consumers of meat should be protected from food of this character. 

It is well known that many of the internal parasites of man can only be obtained 
from the animal food of which he partakes. This applies particularly to tape worms 
and trichinae, which pass one period of their lives in the flesh of cattle and hogs. 
It is not so generally understood that many sudden and dangerous illnesses result 
from eating animal food which has been poisoned by the products of disease existing 
in the animal before its slaughter. Most common of these are the septic disorders so 
common in nearly all species of domesticated animals. 

The most dangerous disease in its effects upon human health, however, is tuber- 
culosis, which is known to be very prevalent among cattle, and for which it is seldom 
that a carcass is condemned. The vital statistics of the country show that 150,000 
deaths are caused every year in the United States by this disease, and almost the 
only available means of prevention suggested by the medical commissions which 
have investigated the subject, is the protection of the consumer from food derived 
from tuberculous animals. 

In the preparation of this article details have been purposely omitted and the aim 
has been to present in a succinct form the great reasons for a national inspection law 
that will guaranty the character of the animal food sold in this country, as well as 



32 

of that which goes into our export trade. The facts which are here stated, in a broad 
and general way, are known to the writer to be true, and they can be substantiated 
at any time by a proper inquiry. 

The disease referred to in the concluding part of the preceding paper, 
tuberculosis, is so widespread and furuishes in itself so strong an argu- 
ment in favor of a rigid national inspection law, that I think it well to 
introduce it more prominently in the body of this report, and to that 
end I submit the following extracts from the able address of Dr. G. C. 
Faville, professor of veterinary surgery, in charge of the United States 
Bureau of Animal Industry, Baltimore, Md., delivered at Grange Cainp, 
Va., August 20, 1889. Dr. Faville said : 

The close competition in the commercial world and the increasing number of con- 
sumers in our cities increases the temptation to adulterate food products; and as the 
producers of all the foods consumed are really the farmers the question of food adul- 
terations comes home to them through their pockets with great force. 

When the farmer's hog has to compete with the cotton-seed oil and paraffine it ia 
expected that the farmer should "squeal," and when his cow has to compete with 
both the hog and the steer in the production of butter, it is legitimate that he should 
" kick. " It is probable that the chemical processes through which the several in- 
gredients pass in their transformation into so-called lard or butter would destroy 
any diseased germs that might be present, but when, as often happens, the meat or 
milk of diseased animals is consumed, the dangers to human life become much 
greater. • 

There can be no question that the people of the country do not understand the 
danger in which they stand, or they would demand protection ; and for the people 
to demand, is for them to secure. 

The diseases that are directly communicable to man from the lower animals are 
numerous: Glanders, anthrax, actynomycosis (lump jaw,) tuberculosis, and others, 
besides the various digestive and other troubles that come from eatiug meat from ill- 
conditioned carcasses, are well known to the medical profession. It is a practice in 
all the markets of our large cities to sell meat from any animal of the bovine species 
that is able to go to the slaughter-houses. In most of our markets there is no restric- 
tion on the sale of any class of meats, and as a result any old, emaciated cows, or ani- 
mals with cancerous jaws, bad udders, or any other disease, are slaughtered and sold 
for human food. While there is much danger from any animal that is not in a healthy 
condition, the most dangerous of all, probably, is the one suffering from tuber- 
culosis. 

Tuberculosis has been recognized under different names for centuries ; but not 
until the last few years has anything like a correct understanding of the disease 
existed. With this, as with a host of other diseases, the popular name has indicated 
some existing condition. "Grape," " angleberries," "pining," "consumption," 
etc., have all alluded to a condition observed in some of the many forms of this dis- 
ease. It is more than likely that when Moses formulated the Jewish laws against 
the consumption of animals whose lungs were diseased he referred to tuberculous, 
and ever since that time the human race has been menaced by this insidious foe. 

It was stated on the floor of the Senate last winter that statistics showed that five 
hundred thousand children die annually in our cities in the United States from the 
use of diseased milk. 

What adulterations can possibly be the source of so great danger as the o-erm of 
an infectious disease ? 

While we do not like the idea of buying water for milk, it is surely no more re- 
pugnant than buying sand for sugar, or any other adulterated food. 



33 

The actual danger to the health of the people from such adulterations is nothing 
when compared to the danger from tubercular germs. 

The only way to control the spread of this and other diseases is by compulsory in- 
spection of all cows kept for dairy purpose by competent inspectors, and the con- 
demnation of all cows that are found to be diseased. 

A thorough compulsory inspection of all the dairies and slaughtering establish- 
ments, under the control of the Federal aud State Governments working in harmony, 
could be made to very materially decrease the number of deaths among the - people, 
more especially in our cities. There is no subject of more importance with which our 
"statesmen can grapple. Under the law as it now stands, the Bureau of Animal In- 
dustry can do no more than to incidentally find out that tuberculosis exists ; there are 
no funds that are available for the purpose of controlling diseased meats, or of dis- 
posing of tuberculosis cows. 

It is not too much to say that scientific men who have given this sub- 
ject attention are almost a unit as to the necessity of a rigid govern- 
ment inspection of both slaughter-houses aod dairies. 

The extracts which I append are but a few out of a very large num- 
ber of a similar character that have been brought to my attention. I will 
first offer some extracts from the report of an authority already quoted. 
I refer to the Brooklyn health department. It may be urged iu this 
connection that diseased meats and dairy products are not, properly 
speaking, adulterations, but it is quite evident that in providing for 
this report the Committee on Agriculture of the House of Representa- 
tives intended to include, as far as possible, all food products injurious 
to health, as well as those which might come under tbe head of com- 
mercial adulteration. That the committee was desirous to prevent the 
consumption of diseased meats is shown by their favorable report on 
the Laird bill which embraced among its provisions one for a rigid in- 
spection of animals intended for human food, both before and after 
slaughter. 

So far as inspection of milk is concerned I would suggest that 
although from its nature it is unlikely to become the subject of interstate 
commerce and thus be withdrawn from the absolute control of munici- 
pal or State regulations, still there are cases in various parts of the 
country in which it is conveyed from one State to the other, and it seems 
to me that to confine the inspection of milk to an analysis as is usually 
done is quite inadequate for the protection of the consumer. Important 
as this is, the inspection of the source whence the milk is derived is 
perhaps even more so. Among milch cows the disease of tuberculosis 
is undoubtedly very prevalent. Professor Law states that 20, 30, or 
even 50 per cent; of certain herds that supply New York City with milk 
are affected by this disease; "in some country districts of New York 
can be shown large herds with 90 per cent, subject to tuberculosis." 
The evidence in regard to the contagious nature of tuberculosis and to 
the possibility of its communication to man by the meat and milk of 
tuberculous animals is becoming so strong th^t further doubt is im* 
possible, 

12563— Bull. 23—3 



34 

Dr. Charles Oreighton, of Cambridge University, believes that bovine 
and human tuberculosis are identical and mutually communicable. He 
says (see London Lancet, June 19, 1880), 'that he believes a supposed 
outbreak of typhoid fever which occurred in the industrial school to 
have been in reality not typhoid, but ' bovine tuberculosis. 7 " 

Dr. Lydten, of Carlsruhe, in his report upon tuberculosis to the Na- 
tional Veterinary Congress, held in Brussels, September, 1883, con- 
cludes, among other things, 

That there are clinical observations proving the transmission of tuberculosis from 
animals toman through the use of the milk of phthisical animals ; that tuberculosis 
is contagious, like glanders or lung plague; and that contagion fills a more importaufc 
role than heredity in the propagation of disease. 

Professor Jahne, of Dresden, in a statement of results of all experi- 
ments he could collect in 1882 upon the feeding of tuberculous matter 
to various kinds of domestic animals, states that out of 322 animals 
thus fed 43.5 per cent, took the disease, '51.1 did not, and in 5 per cent, 
the result was doubtful. 

A large number of experimenters have investigated the transmission 
of tubercle, and the results are convincing and conclusive. Dr. Kara- 
•merer, city physician of Vienna, regards infection of tuberculosis by 
tuberculous meat and milk as quite as fruitful a source of disease as 
heridity, to which it is usually traced, 

Professor Jahne considers it well proven that the milk of tuber- 
culous cows is as capable of communicating the disease to man as to 
their own offspring. Stang mentions a case of accidental infection 
of the son of healthy parents by habitually drinking warm milk from 
a tuberculous cow. Professor Dunme, of Berne, mentions a similar 
case that - cq me under his own observation. 

Dr. Bartley says that without going further into this examination, 
we can see the extreme importance of careful inspection of all cows 
whose milk is to be used as food, and it is unquestionably quite as im- 
portant that all such animals should be inspected before and after 
slaughter for human food. 

Any disease [says Dr. Bartley], whether contagious or not, which produces a con- 
tinued febrile condition for a number of days, must bo regarded as sufficient cause 
for the exclusion of the milk of cows so affected. 

Dr. J. H. Eaymond, health commissioner for the city of Brooklyn, in 
his report for 1884, says (pages 17 and 18) : 

We know that when the body is properly nourished individuals are more able to 
withstand the attacks of disease, and even to escape Them, than when from any cause 
they are in a debilitated condition. 

My experience leads me to the conclusion that a verj^ much greater proportion of 
diseased animals is slaughtered and the meat of the same put upon the market than 
is commonly believed. During the past summer inspectors have been stationed at 
the slaughter-houses with reference to this detection of impure meat, and they have 
thus been enabled to discover and condemn meat which would otherwise have found 
its way into the market. In one of our large cities, at a not very distant date, scores 
of immature veal were exposed for sale in public market, aud, it was the opinion of 



35 

men competent to decide that some of these calves had come into the world only a 
day or two before and others had been born dead. The effect of such meat upon 
the health of those unfortunate enough to eat it can readily be surmised ; and here let 
me say that in my judgment no inspection of meat can be of much value unless it 
occurs at the slaughter-house and before the vicera has been removed. Many cases 
of tuberculosis and of contagious pleuro-pneumonia have been detected by the in- 
spectors, who were able to interrogate the lungs before they were removed from the 
animal, which would have passed a most rigid inspection had an examination of the 
carcass alone been relied upon. 

Messrs. May & McElroy, meat inspectors for Brooklyn, in their report, 

say: 

We have endeavored to check the sale of meats unfit for human food to such an ex- 
tent, that we can freely say and without any hesitation that there is less bad meat 
sold in Brooklyn than any other city of the Union, and for this we are in a large 
measuro indebted to the assistance we have received from our police magistrates in 
severely punishing offenders, also to the press for publishing the proceedings concern- 
ing the same. 

INSPECTION AT TIME OF SLAUGHTER NECESSARY. 

ISTo inspection of carcasses subsequent to time of slaughter is adequate 
to insure the safety of the public. Among the various diseases to which 
animals are liable and which render the meat unfit for human consump- 
tion, there are some only to be detected by examination of the internal 
organs, absolutely necessitating, therefore, an inspection at the time of 
slaughter of each animal by a competent inspector. This is well ap- 
preciated in Europe, and especially in Berlin, where there exist "muni- 
cipal slaughter and investigation houses," established in 1883. 

The following is a record of diseased meat discovered and rejected 
in these houses ; 64 cattle, 2,932 organs, 2 calves, 297 hogs, 3,410 organs, 
all affected with tuberculosis, 247 hogs with erysipelas, 39 other ani- 
mals with jaundice, 30 with dropsy, 60 meat in unhealthy condition, 
nature of disease not stated; in 1,407 cases the microscope detected the 
presence of tape- worm ; * 9,000 unborn calves were seized, which would 
doubtless have found their way into the market as veal, had the ani- 
mals been slaughtered without the careful supervision secured by the 
centralizing of the slaughter business. Finally no less than 199 ani- 
mals were infested with trichina, and destroyed. 

Dr. Strawbridge, at a recent meeting of the Philadelphia County 
Medical Society, in offering a resolution urging State legislation in form 
of inspection, said : 

Anybody can dump any kind of food in Philadelphia and we must take it, but if 
we refuse to eat it, we are told that we are not good citizens. Meat ought to be in- 
spected when alive and also during the process of slaughtering. Unless you can in- 
spect the animal alive and also when the internal parts can be viewed, the inspec- 

* The African negroes who are rich enough to feed on beef, which they eat raw, are 
largely affected with tape- worm. This is doubtless transmitted from the animal 
direct into the human system. It may not -be amiss to observe that the practice or 
eating underdone meats is, one calling for careful attention from the scientist, 



36 

tion is useless. In the inspection of milk the principal thing is to see the cows that 
give it, so as to see that they are not diseased, and to inspect it at its place of delivery. 
(American Analyst, March 28, 1889.) 

From an address read before the State Sanitary Convention of Ohio, 
by Dr. D. H. Beckwith, of Cleveland, Ohio, member of the State board 
of health, I take the following : 

In Twinsburg, a physician informed me a few months ago that in visiting a dairy 
farm he found a cow covered with sores and undoubtedly suffering from tuberculosis, 
where milk was being shipped to market with that of other cows for consumption. 
Similar cases are noticed in various parts of the country every day. 

Thomas J. Edge, a special Government agent in Harrisburg, Pa., says in his re- 
port July 21, 1886 : 

"I am not an alarmist, but if citizens could see the cases of tuberculosis which 
have come to my notice, they would not allow another session of the legislature to 
pass without at least an attempt to restrict its spread. 

"We have found whole herds and dairies affected to a greater or less degree with 
this disease. Milk is used from animals scarcely able to stand. That milk from dis- 
eased animals reaches your city market is so evident that it needs no demonstration ; 
that no amount of inspection will detect the presence of this disease, is apparent." 

This report is not essentially different from those of other agents in other localities. 
It is only a wonder, in view of all the facts which have been gathered by observation 
and examination, that any children in large cities ever reach man's estate. 

A few days ago I attended a family sick with diphtheria. There was no apparent 
cause for the appearance of the malady about the premises. Upon inquiring I found 
that children in other neighboring families were suffering from the same dread dis- 
ease, and I determined to make investigation. It very soon transpired that all of the 
affected families were being supplied with milk from the same person, tvho sold to no 
other families in the neighborhood. 

I then drove out to this man's dairy farm and found my worst suspicions more than 
well grounded. The condition of affairs was simply indescribable. The entire water 
supply came from a stagnant pond, covered with slime and reeking with filth. Several 
dead animals were floating in the water, partly decomposed. The stalls where the 
cows were fed, milked, and housed, were filthy in the extreme. No attempt at ven- 
tilation had been made, and the food was of the poorest quality. No worse condition 
of affairs could have been possible at the farm. A kind Providence only spared the 
people whom this man supplied with milk. 

The dangers to which we are exposed from the use of diseased or putrifled meats 
are very great.. The flesh of diseased animals is liable to become putrified sooner 
than that of healthy animals; and the recent discovery of parasites in meat, which 
is but partially decomposed, where, in short, putrifactive fermentation has bat re- 
cently set in, points to their presence as the cause of the severe effect of sickness pro- 
duced from the reception of meat in this particular stage into the stomach. 

Dr. Ashmun, the health officer of Cleveland, informed me that during the past year 
that from fourteen to fifteen cases were poisoned from eating pork that was infected 
with trichina. 

# * * * # # # 

To diagnose trichinosis is no easy task. The symptoms in connection with the dis- 
covery of the parasite itself, in the suspected food, and removing a portion of the 
muscle of the patient and placing it under a microscope, will reveal the real trouble. 

Thfe Chicago Academy of Science, a few years since, examined portions of muscles 
taken from 1,394 hogs in different packing houses and butcher shops in Chicago. 
They found trichina in the muscles of twenty-eight hogs, From these examinations 
and observations they came to the conclusion that in the hogs brought to this city, 

om in fifty was. more w Jess aft'eeted with, tkm parasites now on exhibition before 



37 

you. From the worst specimens they found in Chicago, a person eating an ordinary 
meal of pork (the specimen containing 18,000 to the cubic inch), would soon become 
infected with not less than 1,000,000 of young trichina. 



PUBLIC OPINION. 

I herewith present extracts from sundry letters and reports of gen- 
tlemen who as scientists, officials, and publicists may be deservedly re- 
garded as authorities on the subject we have in hand. 

I will first quote Prof. Stephen P. Sharpless, State assayer of Mas- 
sachusetts. This gentleman is probably one of the best informed men 
in the country on the subject of food adulteration, and he has been 
good enough to favor me with advance sheets of a pamphlet entitled 
"Adulteration of Food," from which I will offer here several extracts, 
and whom I will also quote again in a subsequent portion of this 
report, devoted to an enumeration of adulterated articles and adulter- 
ants. The professor says : 

The statute-books of all nations abound in laws upon this subject, which are prac- 
tically dead-letters. 

This arises from two causes : the first is ignorant, indiscriminate legislation ; a law 
which condemns equally flour or rape-seed and chromate of lead in mustard is soon 
looked upon with contempt. The second cause is too conservative or too definite 
legislation. There are many laws which condemn specifically certain adulterations- 
The adulterator carefully avoids these substances, and substitutes for them others, 
perhaps not less dangerous, and continues in his way. 

Another objection to this specific legislation is the fact that, when an adulteration 
is thoroughly exposed, it becomes practically dead, since, if it is known to the whole 
of the trade, it ceases to be profitable. 

But all prohibitory legislation necessarily follows the act which it is intended to 
prevent, and therefore specific laws against any particular adulteration have but 
little force, since they come too late to be of any benefit ; by the time the law is upon 
the statute-book the old adulteration has been forgotten, and a new one has taken 
its place. 

England has legislated more on this subject during the past hundred years than 
any other country, and a careful examination of her laws will serve fully to illus- 
trate what I have said. 

A law upon this subject must be simple, easily understood, and general in its appli- 
cation, and it should not attempt to control all commercial frauds, but only such as 
are directly detrimental to health. 

Dr. Beck with, chairman of the committee on adulteration of food, 

drinks and drugs, of the Ohio State board of health, has also kindly 

favored me with the advance sheets of the first annual report of the 

board, from which I extract the following : 

At the present time nearly all the adulterations are mere dilutions and substitu- 
tions in the interest of pecuniary gain, as exemplified in the dilution of milk with 
water, and the substitution of glucose for cane sirups, so extensively practiced ; 
careful research showing in nearly all cases that the presence of absolutely pernicious 
ingredients is the result of accident and not design. An exception, perhaps, may be 
noted in the use of alum in damaged flour, but the effects of this. adulteration upon 
the human system are as yet a matter of speculative controversy. 



38 

The wisdom of prohibitory legislation can he seen on our side of the water by the 
results obtained in Canada. The work of examination there began in 1876, when 
51.66 per cent, of the articles examined were found adulterated. In six years there- 
after, or in 1882, this percentage had been reduced to 25 — a remarkable showing, 
when we consider that the only mode of punishment for infraction of the law has 
been the publication of the names of guilty parties. 

It may be safely asserted that in every locality where the law does not deter from 
the act adulterated articles are on sale in all kinds of food-supply stores, even the 
most reputable. 

The same authority, in an address before the State sanitary conven- 
tion, said : 

In the matter of coffees, teas, spices, sirups, sugars, and many other articles in 
daily use, short crops or sweeping changes in import duties do not trouble the con- 
sumer in the least. The beneficent manipulators of these goods take the import, be 
it much or little, and bring the supply up to the demand in their own warehouses by 
a judicious use of cheap homo products. The thrifty housewife knows the cost of a 
box of spice or a package of coffee with the same certainty that the manufacturer 
reckons the profits on his sales, and both are content. If said sugars are worth 7 
cents in New York, glucose can be had for 3 cents in Buffalo, and it becomes a 
simple example in proportion to lay before the consumer a prime article at 6 cents, 
and leave the refiner such a margin for profit as his fancy may dictate. In this in- 
stance fraud alone is perpetrated ; but the same refiner, to lighten the color of his 
sirups, employs a salt of tin, which is known to be deleterious to health and there- 
fore dangerous to life. 

And in concluding he says : 

When we consider that the welfare, the happiness, and the greatest prosperity of a 
nation depends upon the health and morals of its people, and that unpalatable and 
irritating foods are the prime causes of very many diseases that flesh is heir to, the 
imperativeness of entering the field, lance in hand, against this insatiable foe to good 
living and good temper, food adulterations, ought to be apparent to every one of us. 
So much has been charged and so much proven by those who have given their time 
and best scientific knowledge to investigations into the conditions of our food prod- 
ucts, that ignorance can no longer be made the excuse for inactivity. The most 
humble among us may become the strongest in this righteous fight. Play must be 
given to the impulses which are part of all nations, and not the creature of any con- 
dition or profession. 

We are too prone to thrust upon the physicians and health officers duties which 
should be our own. 

In this age of progress we can not go back to old time simplicity, when the mis- 
tress of the house was the presiding genius of the kitchen, but we can and should 
examine closely every article of food that enters our doors^ and call the attention of 
the proper authorities to any case of suspected contamination. ■ Let this be done in 
all our homes and there would soon grow a strong public sentiment against food 
adulteration. 

I appeal to mothers to protect their offspring from the ruthless hand of this 
destroyer. 

I appeal to the economist to enter the lists againsts this despoiler of our homes and 
depleter of our fortunes. I appeal to humanity to shake off the fetters of the most 
cruel tyrant and exacting despot the world has ever seen. I appeal to the commer- 
cial men all over the country to unite as a band of brothers and discountenance the 
adulteration of food and drink. 

In reply to the circular sent out by ine March 29, 1889, and which 
will be found in the appendix to this report, I received a letter from Dr. 



39 

Abbott, secretary of the Massachusetts State board of health, con- 
taining some valuable inclosures, and in which he says, in regard to the 
inspection laws of his State : 

I will reply briefly that the laws of this State relative to food and drug inspection 
were enacted in 1882. Not much active work other than investigation was done till 
1884, siuce which time the hoard has carried on a very successful line of work under 
these laws. About 28,000 samples of food and drugs, in all, have been examined, and 
395 prosecutions conducted in 80 cities and towns in this State. These related to 
milk, butter, honey, sirups, sugar, molasses, vinegar, cream of tartar, olive-oil, 
maple sirup and sugar, spices of various sorts, confectionery, coffee, and various 
kinds of drugs. Eighty-seven percent, of the complaints entered (344 in all) re- 
sulted in conviction. Several articles of an actively injurious character have been 
found and their sale suppressed and offenders driven out of the State in some instances. 

From one of the inclosures forwarded by Dr. Abbott, consisting of a 
page from an early report of the State board, I extract the following 
interesting testimony as to the results of the enforcement of the law: 

There can be no question as to the beneficial results of the law as executed by the 
officers of the board in improving the quality of the food and drug supply of the State, 
especially in regard to milk and butter — in the former case as relates to the quality 
of the supply, and in the latter as relating to the proper branding and marking of 
spurious goods. The extensive correspondence of the health department with whole- 
sale houses outside of Massachusetts also confirms their appreciation of the value of 
the work done in this State, and also the necessity of furnishing articles of undoubted 
purity for this market. This is especially true of all classes of drugs sold at whole- 
sale by parties outside the State. 

The actual economic results obtained by the enforcement of the statutes relative 
to food and drug inspection can not be stated exactly. The law is comprehensive 
and its provisions cover a great variety of articles. Its restraining influence extends 
outside of Massachusetts to manufacturers sending goods to this market. Such par- 
ties appreciate the value of the work done in this State, and also the necessity of 
furnishing articles of undoubted purity for this market. 

From Dr. Hewitt, secretary of the state board of health and vital 
statistics, of the State of Minnesota, I received a letter, which, though 
probably not intended for publication, treats the subject of food adul- 
teration in a common-sense manner that ought to command attention. 
He is no doubt justified in the assertion that there is a good deal of 
clap-trap in the cry of adulterations, in spite of which he concludes that 
" there are dangers real, important, and to be guarded against." His 
letter reads as follows : 

I am glad that the Department has undertaken to obtain a report of a popular 
character of food adulterations. 

There is so much clap-trap in the stir which has resulted in the law for food pro- 
tection in the West this last winter, that I shall be glad to see the truth let into the 
people. 

Alum in baking powder ! ! was the cry that passed our recent law. Our greatest 
dangers are in milk, and possibly in meat. The cry against milk has been a "bo- 
nanza" to the patent-food men, and theynow boldly propose to supplement, not only 
cow's milk, but mothers milk as well, and their sales are enormous. One of them 
applied to me the other day for a list of the parents of new-born children, which I 
get monthly from all over the State, so that he could get in early with the patent 
food. The cry of adulteration and danger in foods is become a watchword for the 
very frauds themselves. 



40 

I hope you will get to the bottom and show the people exactly " where the scare 
comes in" and where it does not. Even water (spring and deep well) is under the 
bane of adulteration with sewage, bacteria, etc., and Hyatt and other hlterers pro- 
pose a better plan than the natural one. 

The very excess of the cry will soon make people take the natural reaction, as in 
the story of the "boy and the bear," and then the bear will have the best chance 
because he is so rarely around when talked about. 

There are dangers real, important, and to be guarded against, but they want defi- 
nition and to be taken from the hands of "business men and experts" trading on 
them into common knowledge and sanitary supervision. 

The Hou. F. B. Thurber, of New York, in a letter to the National 
Farm and Fireside, which appears hi that journal December 7, 18S8, 
says: 

There should be a general bill. Piecemeal legislation is not satisfactory, and an 
executive bureau with an adequate appropriation to see the law is carried out, is an 
absolute necessity. Laws do not execute themselves; if they did, a j>olico force and 
the machinery of our courts would, be unnecessary. 

While there is probably not as much injurious adulteration as the public generally 
think, there is enough to make a national law desirable, and there is a very large 
amount of adulteration, which, while perhaps not very injurious, is a fraud both upon 
the stomach and the pocket of the consumer. 

The general principles to be kept in view in such legislation is, is injurious adul- 
teration prohibited, while non-injurious articles, which are adulterated simply to in- 
crease bulk or reduce cost, should be permitted to be sold, provided plain notice is 
given to the consumer of what he is getting. 

A very valuable feature of the Laird bill is the official publicity which it proposes 
to give to the examination of food by the bureau established for that purpose ; for, 
with official publicity, the competition between manufacturers and dealers will con- 
stantly tend to raise the standard, while without such publicity competition would 
work the other way. 

A dealer who desires to sell pure food products now is met with unscrupulous com- 
petitors who claim to sell just as good goods as he does at lower prices. If he ana- 
lyzes their products and exposes them, they raise the cry of " trade jealousy " and his 
exposures have but little effect ; but with official publicity, the hands of the dealer 
in pure goods would be greatly strenghteued, and, as above stated, this constitutes 
one of the most valuable features of the Laird bill. The penalty of exposure is far 
greater than any other penalty, for it always loses the trade and profit te the manu- 
facturer or dealer in adulterated goods. 

The Hon. Erastns Brooks, in an address before the board of Penn- 
sylvania, says : 

Take, for example, the simple article of candy, much of which is reported to be 
made from grape-sugar, glucose, and terra alba, the latter being sold at 1 cent a 
pound and the former at 4 cents. Where granulated sugar costs, by the barrel, 9£ 
cents, the cheaper grades of this article may be depreciated in value over 50 to 70 
per cent. (Page 363, Pennsylvania report.) 

Again, in the same report he says : 

It is a public duty, to resist all impurities both in the food we eat, the water we 
drink, and in the contaminated air we breathe in all dwellings and workshops and in 
all that is around them ; and let me say in speaking alike for the State and oitizen 
that Principiis obsta is the only safe rule of action. 

Mr. H. Wharton Amerling is the president of the American Society 
for the Prevention of Adulteration, and in an address delivered by him 



41 

I find the following strong presentment of the case from the point of 
view of physical health : 

By adulteration man is made sick, and by it he is prevented a recovery and most 
foully murdered. Why, thus it is that paupers are made pl&nly, criminals many, 
lunatics numerous, and Americans known as a nation of invalids. Men are losing 
their mental powers, and with them their property and honor. Adulterations more 
than intemperance dement, delude, and madden to fraud, violence, and murder. Prog- 
eny inherits mental taints, and possesses an anomalous desire to do violence to 
others' property and person ; to burn houses and wreck trains. More room for the 
insane is the general demand. Already $50,000,000 have been invested in asylums, 
while the cure of the insane costs annually $15,000,000. From 1870 to 1880 there was 
a gain of 26 per cent, of the total population, while the insane population increased 
over 100. per cent. 

THE POOR WORST AFFLICTED. 

People in good circumstances do not suffer a tithe as much as the poor in the cities.' 
These poor buy a few cents' worth of provisions only at a time. Yet insanity is gen- 
eral and nervons disorders are growing to make it more general. Chloral, morphine, 
etc., are demanded by the victims of commercial fraud, and insanity or death is the 
end. The rapidly increasing use of these deadly drugs is frightful, and will be more 
so if supineness of legislation allows the insidious corruption of our food to continue. 

NECESSITY FOR OFFICERS. 

No law will be able to suppress adulteration that does not provide officers to detect 
and apprehend it. Private individuals have not the authority by law to demand of 
dealers and producers admission to their establishments or power to take articles to 
inspect, or the time and money'to analyze them. The purpose of government being 
protection, it is not the duty of private individuals to provide the expense of such 
protection. A citizen may feel that he has been injured by adulteration, but as the 
expense of analyzation is considerable, amounting in most cases to from $100 to $300, 
he is unable to prove his injury, and thus unabated murder continues. 

Under the law preventing adulteration the English are living longer and better 
than we. Dr. Foster.stated before the English medical society lately, that a man's 
natural life-time is one hundred years, and that all could live that long if they met 
with no accident and lived properly. From Dr. Farr's observation of the march 
through life of 1,000,000 children, he found that the English were living longerthan 
formerly, as there had been a gain of 2-J years in the average life of the people. He 
claims that the largest amount of sickness is due to insufficient and impure food, and 
that the first essential to life is pure food. Further, that hereditary taints may be 
abolished by. proper living, and the body left at death stronger and better than when 
it was taken up at birth, because the old blood cells, the fibers and epithelic scales 
being cast off, may be replaced with others better, and eventually untainted. 

In concluding this address, Mr. Amerling says : 

There are quite as many adulterations as pure articles; we have found food adul- 
teration to average 41 per cent, and drug adulterations 38 per cent. Let us realize 
that we can never perpetuate our government as long as the very nourishment of the 
babe is poisoned at its mother's breast. 

Mr. F. N. Barrett, editor of the American Grocer, thus tersely and 
strongly expresses the commercial view of this matter, "The gist of 
the whole thing lies in the right of every man to get what he pays his 
money for." 

A reputable firm of druggists writing from Boston, say : "That the 
extent of adulteration in that State is 'very small;' our State laws are 



42 

so stringent that it will not pay to take the risk." They also say : 
"Any adulterants used in medicines would be injurious," and they con- 
clude with the assertion that an experience of thirty-nine years shows 
that druggists who adulterate their goods generally lose their trade. 

Mr. Elisha Winter is the secretary of the committee on legislation 
of the National Pure Food Movement ; in a debate before the Eetail 
Grocers' Association of New York and vicinity between himself and 
Artemus Ward, he spoke as follows : 

Adulteration plays into the hands of the avaricious few, hy giving them the chance 
to take more than their share of trade, on account of the low prices at which they 
can sell poor goods. Some of the arguments that have been brought up against the 
possible operation of this bill remind me of the terrible apprehension with which 
some persons endeavored to scare the community when railroads were first suggested. 
It was gravely argued that the trains would frighten the cows and they would not let 
down their milk. 

Recognizing the limit to the situation, we present this bill as the only possible re- 
sort ; or, in the language of the call : "The only protection the houest retailer can se- 
cure for himself is to ask the National Government to supplement the various States 
and municipalities by reaching imported commodities, interstate transportation, and 
in territories, under the jurisdiction of the United States authorities, the sale of food 
products." If the General Government will give the retailer this protection, he may 
then work out his own salvation by putting his individual guaranty upon all his 
goods and demanding that the State authorities shall then recognize the integrity of 
his purpose and give him support, instead of making the present class discrimination, 
to free himself from which he is now making this organized national attempt. 

The same gentleman, in a circular dated March, 1887, says : 

The evils accruing from the manufacture, importation, and sale of adulterated 
food, drugs, and medicines are patent to all who have given the matter even casual 
attention. This traffic is on the increase, and the detrimental influences arising 
therefrom extend to the health as well as the pockets of the people. For both hy- 
gienic and commercial reasons it is agreed that a remedy sufficiently powerful to 
check the evil must be invoked. 

The constitution and bylaws of the Central Association of Eetail 
Merchants of New York and vicinity, says under the heading of " ob- 
jects and aims :" 

Sec. 7. Protection against the adulteration of goods, fictitious labels, imperfectly 
prepared food products, etc. : Legislative reform has been practicallynull and void 
looking to the accomplishment of much reform in the adulteration of goods, ficti- 
tious labels, etc. It .has been very easy to pass laws, but very difficult to enforce 
them. Our proposed State association will have a duty to perform in arriving, if 
possible, at a happy medium of judgment upon the merits of these questions. This 
association should also demand that with every package of food products shall be de- 
livered the guaranty and designation of the quality of goods therein contained. 

DR. HASSELL ON THE NEED OF LEGISLATION. 

In concluding this report I submit the following deductions of that 
celebrated and eminent English scientist, Dr. Hassell, who more than 
thirty years ago was employed by the London Lancet to investigate 
the adulteration of food products. Dr. Hassell's work on food adul- 
terants is a standard on the subject, and as his conclusions (which aided 



43 

so greatly in securing the passage of the food adulteration act) are 
as applicable to the present condition of affairs in this country as they 
were thirty years ago in England, I give them in full. The second 
paragraph, relative to taxation, is of course not applicable to the United 
States at this time: 

Legislation on the subject is required — 

First. For the protection of the public health. The evidence given before the 
parliamentary committee on adulteration proves that the deadliest poisons are daily 
resorted to for purposes of adulteration, to the injury of the health and the destruc- 
tion of the lives of thousands. There is scarcely a poisonous pigment known to 
these islands which are not thus employed. 

Second. For the protection of the revenue. This will be readily acknowledged 
when it is known that nearly half the national revenue is derived from taxes on food 
and beverages. It has already been shown that not long since adulteration was rife, 
and it still exists to a large extent in nearly all articles of consumption, both solid 
and fluid, and including even those under the supervision of the excise. 

Third. In the interests of the honest merchant and trader. The upright trader is 
placed in a most trying and unfair position in consequence of adulteration. He is 
exposed to the most ruinous and unscrupulous competition; too often he is under- 
sold, and his business thus taken from him. It is. therefore to the interest of the 
honest trader that effective legislation should take place, and not only is it to his in- 
terest but we can state that it is his most anxious desire that adulteration sbould be 
abolished. In advocating the suppression of adulteration we are therefore advocat- 
ing the rights and interests of all honorable traders. 

Fourth. For the sake of the consumer. That the consumer is extensively robbed 
through adulteration, sometimes of his health, but always of his money, is unques- 
tionable. It is, however, the poor man, the laborer, and the artisan, who is the most 
extensively defrauded ; for, occupied early and late with his daily labor, often in debt 
with those with whom he deals, he has no time or power to help himself in the mat- 
ter, and if he had the time he still would require the requisite knowledge. The sub- 
ject of adulteration, therefore, while it concerns all classes, is eminently a poor man's 
question ; the extent to which he is cheated through adulteration is really enormous. 

Fifth. On the ground of public morality. Adulteration involves deception, dis- 
honesty, fraud, and robbery, and since adulteration is so prevalent so equally must 
these vices prevail to the serious detriment of public morality and to the" injury of 
the character of the whole nation for probity in the eyes of the world. We repeat, 
then, that some prompt, active, and efficient legislative interference is demanded for 
the sake of public morality and the character of this country among the nations of 
the world. 

I will conclude this portion of .this report with two notable extracts, 
one a speech delivered in the Forty-eighth Congress by the Hon. J. W. 
Green and the other from a report in the Fiftieth Congress by the late 
Hon. James Laird of Nebraska, respectively. 

Said the Hon. Mr. Green : 

Who will say that he who stamps and passes off little bits of baser metal than the 
standard bullion to put in your pockets is guilty of greater wrong than he who pre- 
pares and sells to you base and counterfeit compounds, not to say deadly, to put into 
your stomach ? Possibly the reason for imposing penalties in the one case and neg- 
lecting to do so in the other, is that our ancestors could not realize that human cu- 
pidity could prompt such depravity as trifling with the health, well-being, and very 
existence of myriads of their fellow-men. 

Probably every gentleman on this floor knows what steatite or soapstone is; if not, 
I will state that it is a soft, calcareous, easily cut rock, but probably surpassing any 



44 

other in weight and density. Presumptively, therefore, not the most digestible ar- 
ticle of diet known. 

Now, sir, what would he your inference, if told by the proprietor of one of these sap- 
onaceous quarries, as I have been, that he finds a ready sale for all the "soapstone 
flour" that he can grind ?^ And who are your customers? Chiefly commercial mill- 
ers and sugar refiners. 

Mine, sir, was that the information tallied with what I had previously seen in 
print, that the vile stuff enters largely into our tea, coffee, toddy, sweetmeats, and 
daily bread. Sir, it behooves those who hear to ponder well. Steatite may be an 
excellent lining for stoves. I doubt its coequal fitness for stomachs. Hot "biscuit 
for breakfast, " "light bread for supper," was wout to gladden my heart in younger 
days, for in the house of an honored uncle who raised me, "corn bread" as a rule 
was the staple staff of life. 

Think you that biscuit for breakfast or light bread for supper (Heaven save 
the mark, how could it have been made light ?) would have been as palatable as ash- 
cake or johnny if one of the descendants of old Job's comforters had kindly volun- 
teered the information that they were to be made out of nice, white soapstone flour 
instead of the glorious golden grain grown on the broad acres around me? 

It is safe to assume, Mr. Speaker, that were the question put to the leading medi- 
cal men of the country a large majority of them would decide that the alarming in- 
crease of late years in nervous, cerebral, and kidney diseases is directly traceable to 
the cause assigned, namely, adulterated driuks of all kinds, including vinous, malt, 
and distilled. Is not insanity fearfully on the increase, as evidenced by the over- 
crowded bedlams of the land and the mania for self-destruction? Then seek for rea- 
son why and find it, too, no less in poisoned beverage than in the growing passion 
for wild speculation. 

But I were derelict to my subject, my constituents, and myself did I close without 
some allusion to like vicious practice in the make-up of medicine ; for, sir, human 
depravity, with utter disregard of human life, has even dared invade the sacred pre- 
cincts of the pharmacopoeia, to lift the tops of the mystic jars on shelves arranged, 
and to infuse base substance in their portentous contents, where oft the difference of 
a feather's weight may involve the mortal life of immortal men. Medical skill is im- 
potent to act and powerless to grapple with fell disease in critical juncture, because 
by base admixture with medicinals it is at loss to know what measure to prescribe 
to compass the end desired. 

I broadly, boldly make the charge and challenge the refutal of investigation. A 
distinguished physician told me some years since, in a neighboring city, that proba- 
bly more deaths resulted directly and indirectly from that source than would from 
disease if left to itself. Almost every leading government in Europe has stringent 
jaws against adulteration. Of these England has perhaps the most perfect and com- 
plete system, and yet it is only of yesterday's growth. Less than thirty years ago Dr. 
John Postgate, a country physician, seeing the abuses perpetrated by adulterators 
of every class, took the matter in hand and after years of persistent effort, beginning 
with only one supporter in Parliament, Mr. Scholefield, and with all the large manu- 
facturers and dealers in Great Britain hounding and denouncing him, succeeded at last 
in having his ideas adopted as embodied in the adulteration acts of the last decade. 

The Hon. Mr. Laird, in his able report presenting bill No. 11266, 
to tbe House of Eepresentatives, said : 

The work is assigned to the Department of Agriculture for the reason that it is 
germane to certain work already in progress there. 

Then, after referring to tbe Bureau of Animal Industry and tbe work 
of tbe chemical division of tbe Department, be adds : 

A more important reason for this reference to the Department devoted exclusively 
to the interests of agriculture lies in the fact that the producer of the food supply is 



45 

most deeply affected by its adulteration ; it therefore appears to be the one best cal- 
culated to enforce proper rules which, wbile accomplisbiug tbe objects desired, bear 
without undue weight upon commerce, manufacture, and transportation. 

That one of the first considerations of every civilized government is its food sup- 
ply can not be controverted, nor can it be contested that the purity of the supply 
is as important as the supply itself. Quantity alone will not meet the demand ; 
quality, within certain limits, is as necessary to health and the prolongation of life 
as quantity is to its preservation. 

The recent exhaustive examination into the alleged adulteration of lard by this 
committee demonstrated the prevalence of covetous and dishonest practices in the 
degeneration, counterfeit, and substitution of commodities by which inferior, cheaper, 
and sometimes injurious articles were made to represent those of standard quality 
and absolute purity. 

This state of facts amounts not only to a premium upon dishonesty but is a threat 
to national health. Honest manufacturers and dealers are placed at a disadvantage 
or are forced into a reckless competition with fraud. Legitimate trade is handi- 
capped and demoralized. It tends to make an Ishmaelite of both manufacturer and 
dealer, and the hand that is raised against competitors in trade falls in the case of 
the meat industries of the country necessarily upon the 7,000,000 and over of farmers 
who produce the supply, and fraudulently upon the entire population that consumes 
it at second hand. 

* * * # # * * 

To say nothing of the home interests to be conserved by the legislation herein pro- 
posed, of the protection to health, and the defense against imposition attempted by 
this bill, the importance of our exports alone is sufficient to require the passage of 
this act. 

The value of farm animals as given by the statistical abstract' from 1865 to 1883 
shows a steady increase both in number and value. Beginning with a value of 
$300,879,128 in 1865, they reach the vast aggregate of $2,338,215,268 in 1882. In 1884 
the value was $2,467,368,924; in 1885, $2,456,428,383; in 1886, $2,365,159,802. In 1887 
there is a shortage of the herds,, and only a slightly increased valuation. The statis- 
tics from 1884 to 1887 shows proportionally a more alarming decrease, the figures 
being as follows: 



Tears. 



1882 
1883 
1884 
]885 
1886 
1887 



Number 
of hogs. 



44, 122, 200 

43, 270, 086 

44, 200, 893 
45, 142, 657 
46, 092, 043 
44, 618, 836 



"Value. 



$263, 543, 195 
291,651,211 
246, 301, 139 
226,401,683 
196, 568, 864 
200, 043, 291 



For 1887 there is an apparent increase in the total value, but in reality only 21.8 
cents per hog, and is due entirely to the fact that the hog crop fell off 1,474,207 in 
numbers from all causes, and the fact stands forth, leaving out the short crop years 
of 18S3 and 1887, that the decrease in these six years in value of the hog product 
reached $66,973,301, with comparatively no increase of the numbers. 

The opponents of pure lard claim that the admixture of foreign compounds has in- 
creased the value of hogs and cattle. The facts prove that within the seven years 
this compounding has been going on the values have steadily decreased, as shown 
by the foregoing tables. 



The interest in and necessity for the legislation proposed in the accompanying bill 
k evidently felt most by two classes of our people— tbe producers, and tbe consumers 



46 

of the products to be affected. The demand for this legislation is wide-spread among 
the farmers of the whole country. It is confined to no section and is as emphatic as 
it is universal. Letters, bulletins, and resolutions from the Grange, Patrons of 
Husbandry, Alliances, and other agricultural organizations demanding legislation 
have flooded the committee and the House. That the same interest in the subject is 
apparent on the part of the consumers is manifest by the letters, petitions, and 
memorials of the various labor organizations, appealing for such action as will give 
them honest food as against the dishonest compounds that not only rob them of their 
money, but of their health also. 



The interest manifested in this matter by the producers and consumers of the 
country has received and is receiving the unequivocal indorsement of the trade asso- 
ciations of the United States and England, and has the earnest support of all manu- 
facturers and dealers not directly interested in compounding the products that are 
the subject of interstate and foreign commerce. That suclris the attitude of the 
business interests of the country, from the least individual to the most powerful 
trade association, is evidenced by their declarations received by the committee from 
all sections of the country, and particularly from the great business and food centers 
of the West and South, namely, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Omaha, 
and other important packing points. 

The universality of this demand for immediate legislation should surprise no one> 
The interests involved are the greatest known to America. The number of horned 
cattle in the United States in 1885, is put at 45,510,630 head; sheep 50.000,000 head, 
swine 45,000,000 head, representing in the aggregate $2,500,000,000 [i.e., including 
horses and mules not given]. This vast sum represents the present earning and 
possible future profits of half the population of the United States. 

In the thirteen Southern States, beginning with Virginia and ending with Texas, 
and including Kentucky, Tennessee, and Arkansas, all the assessed real estate and 
personal property, as returned in the census of 1880, did not equal tho present esti- 
mated value of our animal industry; and all the New England States combined, with 
the single exception of New Hampshire, did not have enough assessed valuation in 
1880 to equal the present value of our domestic animals. 

The product of our animal industry in 1884, including meat and labor, and dairy 
products, and wool, and lard, and tallow, and hides, etc., was four times as much as 
the gross earnings of all the railroad companies in the United States. 

The animal industry is not only great in itself, but it is great in the assistance 
which it renders to other productive industries. Take the greatest crop produced in 
this country — the corn crop — and 72 per cent, of that is dependent upon our auimal 
industry for a market. Take the great hay crop, and there is no other way to utilize 
it; and the oat crop, which mostly goes for animal food. The value of these three 
crops, which are marketed as animal food, of itself reaches a thousand millions of 
dollars a year. 

"While this industry, which asks for the protection proposed in this bill, reaches all 
the levels of life from the millionaire to the day laborers, it embraces more than all 
other industries in the country combined — the property of the poor. 

One head of this vast aggregate of 45,000,000 of horned cattle is the unit of the 
wealth of the farmer — it is the savings-bank of the day laborer. 

From ail these sources come the demand for this legislation, and to its force is added 
every argument that springs from health, economy, and business honor. To the in- 
estimable damage which delay or defeat must do to the health and morals of the 
country is added the fact which your committee must in candor state is more than a 
menace, and that unless it be averted by this or like legislation we are face to face 
with the indisputable fact that one by one the nations of the earth will close the 
doors of their trade in our faces, thereby subjecting the great industries, depend^ 
(jnt OP foreign consumption and confidence to irreparable injury, 



47 

FOOD PRODUCTS ADULTERATED AND ADULTERANTS 

COMMONLY USED. 

Under tbis head I will endeavor to give a list of the food products 
in which adulterations have been frequently practiced, as well as a list 
of the adulterants and cheap substitutes in common use. I will quote 
freely from the advance sheets of Professor Sharpless's report, as this 
gentleman has gone very fully into the subject. As he has already 
been quoted in the section of this report next preceding, it will he un- 
necessary to introduce him further to the reader. The same may be 
said in regard to Dr. Beckwith, of the Ohio Board, from whose report 
we shall make some interesting extracts on the use of glucose especially, 
and also as to the percentage of various food products subjected to 
adulteration. I will also include a list of articles found to be specially 
liable to adulteration by the chemists of the Massachusetts Board of 
Health. To this long list we will have to add certain sections treating 
especially of canned goods and lard adulterations and some notes cnlled 
here and there from recognized and competent authorities in regard to 
the extent and character of these adulterations. 

With these notes and figures before him, the legislator will be able 
to appreciate the.extent to which misbranding, sophistication, adulter- 
ation, and general debasing of food products is indulged in throughout 
the country, and it is to be hoped that this section of the report alone 
will be sufficient to impress upon the minds of all who read it the ur- 
gent necessity for adequate national legislation on this subject, which 
is of such profound interest to every individual of our vast population. 
Legislation capable of preventing these frauds will mean not only the 
saving of millions of money to the public, but the preservation of the 
health of our people. 

To quote first from Professor Sharpless. The professor classsifies 
under' the three heads of deleterious, fraudulent, and accidental. 

Under the first he includes such adulterations as copper in pickles, 
red lead in cayenne pepper,, arsenical colors in candy, water in milk 
(deleterious because diminishing the food value of the product and " so 
starving children who are fed on it)." He also includes in this class of 
deleterious all sophistications of drugs, and medicines, u since the phy- 
sician depends greatly upon the purity of these in regulating the size 
of the dose, and if of inferior strength they do not produce the desired 
effect, and thus become negatively injurious." 

The fraudulent he defines as non-injurious, but " a fraud upon the 
pocket," and to this class belong the great majority of adulterations. 

To this class beloug such articles as package coffee, which is generally a compound 
which contains no coffee ; salad-oil, which is frequently free from olive-oil, consist- 
ing mainly of cotton-seed oil; mustard diluted with flour and colored with turmeric ; 
the mixture of inferior grades of goods with higher grades of the same material, 
the mixture being represented as pure and of full of strength ; the mixture of corn- 
sirup or glucose with cane-sirup, the mixture being sold as pure cane-sirup ; the 
sale of oleomargarine or euet-butter as genuine butter, and the adulteration of spices 
with ship-bread. 



48 



Under the head of accidental, he classes adulterations consisting of 
substances accidentally present in articles of food, that is, not added 
intentionally, but either present because natural to the article, or be- 
cause they have become incorporated in it during the process of manu- 
facture. In case such accidental impurities are of a nature to be in- 
jurious to health the article should be condemned at once, though in 
such case it would hardly be just to hold the vender liable to a 'greater 
extent than is involved in the loss of his property. We append the 
following list : 

Articles liable to be adulterated, as presented by Professor Sharpless. 



Articles. 



Arrowroot 



Brandy 
Bread . . 



Butter 



Canned vegetables 

and meat. 
Cheese .-'. 



Candy and confec- 
tionery. 
Coffee 



Cocoa and chocolate 

Cayenne pepper 

Flour 

Ginger 



Gin .... 
Honey 



Isinglass . 

Lard 

Mustard . 



Milk. 
Meat. 



Horseradish 
Fruit jellies. 



Oatmeal... 
Pickles — 
Preserves , 
Pepper — 



Sago . . 
Bum ., 

Sugar 



Spices 

Cloves 

Cinnamon . 
Pimento... 
Tea 



Vinegar. 
Wine ... 



Deleterious adultera- 
tion. 



Alum, sulphate of cop- 
per. 

Copper 

Salts of copper, lead.. 

Salts of mercury in 
the rind. 

Poisonous colors, arti- 
ficial essences. 



Oxideof iron and other 

coloring matters. 
Bed lead 



Alum. 



Alum salt, spirits of 
turpentine. 



Caustic lime, alum. . . 
Ohromate of lead, sul- 
phate of lime. 
Water 

Infested with para- 
sites. 



Aniline colors, artifi- 
cial essences. 



Salts of copper, alum. 
Aniline colors 



Cayenne pepper, arti- 
ficial essences. 

Salts of tin and lead, 
gypsum. 



Sulphuric, hydro- 
chloric, and pyrolig- 
nsous acids.. 1 

Aniline colors, crude 

. brandy. 



Fraudulent adulteration. 



Other starches, which are substituted 
in whole or in part for the genuine 
article. 

Water, burnt sugar. 

Flours other than wheat, inferior flour, 
potatoes. 

Water, other fats, excess of salts, 

starch. 
Excess of water 



Oleomargarine. 
Grape-sugar... 



Chiccory, peas, rye, beans, acorns, 
chefus-nuts, almond or other nut- 
shells, burnt sugar, low-grade 
coffers. 

Animal fats, starch, flour, and sugar. 

Grotmd rice, flour, salt, and ship- 
bread, Indian-meal. 
Ground rico 

Turmeric, Cayenne pepper, mustard, 

inferior varieties of ginger. 
Water, sugar. 

Glucose, cane-sugar 



Gelatine 

Starch, stearine, salt*. 

Vellowlakes, flour, turmeric,Cayenne 

pepper. 
Burnt sugar, annotto 



Turnip 

Gelatine, apple jelly 



Apples, pumpkins, molasses 

Flour, ship-bread, mustard, linseed- 
meal. 

Potato-starch 

Water _ 



Bice-flour 



Flour, starches 

Arrowroot 

Spent bark 

Ship-bread 

Foreign leaves, spent tea, plumbago, 
gum, indigo, Prussian blue, China 
clay, soap-stone, gypsum. 

Burnt sugar, water . 



Water . 



Accidental adul- 
teration. 



Ashesfrom oven, 
grit from mill- 
stones. 

Curd. 

Meat damaged in 
the process of 
canning. 

Flour. 



Oxide of iron. 
Grit and sand. 



Pollen of various 
plants, inseots. 



Sand, dirt. 
Tainted. 



Old and wormy. 
Sand. 

Burnt sugar. 

Sand and dirt, in- 
sects dead and 
alive." 



Ferruginous 
earth. 



Sulphate of pot- 
tassa. 



*It was evidently an oversight to have omitte<i cottonseed oil and. water, 



49 

As the professor says, the above is certainly a formidable list. For- 
tunately, however, the majority of articles are not adulterated injuri- 
ously. Many adulterants have been only recently met with. Of brandy 
the professor says : 

A large portion of that m the market is made from so-called neutral spirits, which 
are merely alcohol which has been rectified by passing over wood charcoal. These 
neutral spirits are colored with burnt s.ugar, or " French color," and flavored with oil 
of cognac; a little catechu is then added, so as to imitate the taste of the wood, and, 
finally, a little simple sirup, so as to take off the rough edge and impart a smooth 
taste. In this country the spirit used is generally free from any objectionable in- 
gredients. The foreign article, made from potato- whisky, is more objectionable. 

CANNED VEGETABLES AND MEATS. 

Frequent cases have been reported of late years of sickness arising 
from the use of canned meats. The cause seems mainly to have been 
improper methods of canning, or the use of meat that was tainted be- 
fore being canned. Unfortunately we can do nothing in such cases by 
an inspection of the meat, for it generally appears to be all right. 

In buying meats and vegetables — if care is taken in their selection, 
all cans being avoided which are not concave in the heads — but little 
risk is run. 

An examination of the outside of the can is the only guide we can 
have in this class of articles. The heads should be slightly concave. 
This shows that they were hot when sealed. If the heads are convex, 
it shows that decomposition has commenced in the can. 

Cheese. — Occasionally cases of poisoning result from its use, but this 
occurs rarely. The rind is frequently washed with arsenical and mer- 
curial washes to protect it from flies and other insects. All cheese is 
artificially colored ; generally with annatto. 

Candy and confectionery are the subject of such poisonous adultera- 
tions and are so largely used by women and children, that we will quote 
what the professor has to say in regard to them in full, adding that Pro- 
fessor Tonry, in an article in the Baltimore Sun last year, ni&de some 
startling statements as to the extent of the adulterations and poisons 
used in the manufacture of candy. 

Professor Sharpless says : 

No article of food is so liable to be injuriously adulterated as candy and all kinds 
of confectionery. Even the perfectly white candy, which is free from injurious 
coloring matters, is frequently flavored with fusel-oil (essence of banana), oil of bit- 
ter almonds, or essence de mirabane (nitro-benzole), Prussic acid in various forms 
known as almond flavor, and various other essences and extracts which are poisonous 
in their nature, and which are used in large excess by the makers in order to give a 
strong flavor to the article. Various coloring matters of a poisonous nature are used 
in the colored candies frequently to be found in the shops. A long list of such articles 
may be found in Hassall's Treatise on Foods, or in an article published in the proceed- 
ings of the American Pharmaceutical Association for 1878. The vegetable colors can 
frequently be identified by dyeiug pieces of mordanted cloth with them in a bath 
slightly acidulated with acetic acid. The aniline colors are easily identified by 

12563— Bull. 25- — -4 



50 

dyeing unmordanted wool in a neutral or slightly acid bath. Mineral colors must be 
sought for by the usual methods of qualitative analysis. For identification of color- 
ing matters Bolley's Manual may be studied with advantage. 

Glucose is probably present to a greater or less extent in most candy, but fre- 
quently the candy is almost entirely composed of it. Such candy should be ex- 
amined for free sulphuric acid and for excess of lime or sulphate of lime, .^ince the glu- 
coses of the market generally contain an excess of these bodies. The glucose itself is 
harmless; it is only its impurities that are to be feared. "Terra alba," which may be 
either gypsum or China clay, is frequently found in certain kinds of cheap candy, 
such as conversation lozenges. Tbey are to be sought for in such candies as have 
a very white opaque appearance. Flour is sometimes classed as an adulterant. It 
is very apt to be present, as it is used for various purposes in the manufacture of 
candy. It is harmless, and less injurious than the real article. Its use, even in ex- 
cessive quantities, cau only be condemned on the ground that it is a fraud, so far as 
it is used to make weight. The frosting on cakes, being of the same nature as con- 
fectionery, is subject to the same adulterations and frauds. - 

Very frequently papers colored with Paris green, or with the aceto-arsenite of cop- 
per, have been used as a covering for rolls of lozenges, and such papers are almost 
universally used to make the ornamental leaves with which cakes are ornamented. 
Such a practice can not be too strongly condemned. 

In coffee, the adulterants are rarely harmful ; fraudulent ones, how- 
ever, are very numerous. The berry is polished and variously manipu- 
lated so as to deceive the customer as to quality, and it is moreover 
sometimes weighted with water after roasting, by subjecting it to a 
current of steam while still warm. He adds : " It may be safely said 
that scarcely a brand of the so-called package coffees contain any coffee." 
" The essence of coffee," he declares, consists mainly of burnt molasses, 
while the package coffees referred to, are composed principally of peas, 
chiccory, and rye roasted and ground. There is also a small nut, "chefus" 
occasionally found in the market which is used for the same purpose. 
Almond shells are treated with molasses, and when roasted make a fair 
imitation. 

Cocoa and chocolate. — Of this the chief adulterants are fats other than 
the cocoa nibs ; also flour, with the addition of oxide of iron as a color- 
ing agent to counteract excess of flour. The so-called soluble cocoas 
have their fat extracted by heat. 

Flour, though extensively debased in Europe, is generally pure in 
this country, though sometimes corn-meal and rice are used as adulter- 
ants. The principal trouble is, however, in the use of damaged wheat. 

Ginger is sold of two grades, pure and colored, the latter being a 
mixture of about one-half turmeric. It is used to flavor and color 
gingerbread. Mustard is also added to strengthen other grades of 
ginger, so that it may sell as genuine African ginger. 

Honey is adulterated with glucose. 

Lard is fraudulently adulterated with alum and lime water to improve 
its color and add to its weight; also sometimes with starch, and largely 
with cotton-seed oil andstearine. 

Mustard is colored with chromate of lead, also with turmeric, and 
weighted with sulphate of lime. 



51 

Horse-radish grated fraudulently consists largely of turnips. 

Fruit jellies are often, without respect to the name they bear, simply 
apple jelly, colored and flavored to suit. The coloring matter is often 
objectionable, and this is true of most of the flavorings. 

In PicMes, sulphuric acid and copper are the chief things objected to. 

Preserved fruits. — Apple-sauce is often nothing more than pumpkin 
boiled in cider. The raspberry jam is often sour, while strawberry jam 
is frequently made from refuse berries. 

In Pepper we have roast ship-bread, mustard husks, and Indian-meal. 

In Sago, Potato-starch. 

Sugar, generally pure, though powdered sugar is sometimes adulter- 
ated with flour and sirups; frequently with glucose. 

Of Spices, the professor holds that to obtain them pure "it is almost 
necessary to buy them in the unground state." 

Tea is adulterated with other leaves; exhausted tea leaves are said 
to be shipped from China, while sand and dust are frequently found in 
the low grades. Teas are weighted between 20 and 25 per cent., and 
black lead, Prussian blue, and soap-stone are all used. 

Good Vinegar should contain at least 4 per cent, of acetic acid. By 
the British law, sulphuric acid and sulphates in vinegar must not exceed 
one-tenth of 1 per cent., and chlorides of more than one-tenth of 1 per 
cent, should be absent. 

In regard to Wine, of which so much is the subject of importation 
from foreign countries, we will quote what the professor has to say 
more fully. After defining what wine is, and explaining the process 
of " plastering," he adds : 

This plastering of the wine is excused on various grounds. That it is injurious 
hardly admits of questions ; but at present it has to he submitted to, since it is im- 
possible to obtain sherry or port that has not been so treated. 

The next sophistication to which wine is submitted during its manufacture is 
sweetening with sugar. In bad years the grapes are poor, and vield a thin, acid 
juice. In order that the fermentation may produce sufficient alcohol to keep the 
wine, it is customary to add sugar to the must. 

Sometimes the flavor is deficient. Tn order to improve this, the wine merchant 
keeps a supply of old, high-flavored wines, which he adds to the poor wine. 

If the color is deficient in the case of port and other red wines, elderberry-juice is 
added to produce the desired shade. In the case of sherries, caramel is used. Cham- 
pagne is a manufactured wine, having for its basis the juice of a black grape growing 
in the champagne district in France. The bottlers of champagne flavor it, fortify it, 
and sweeten it according to private formulas, so as to imitate as nearly as possible 
their well-known brands ; the main difference between the vintages of various years 
being in the good or poor quality of the wine they start upou. Only one thing can 
be relied upon in regard to champagne, and that is the fact that it is not iib.% pure, 
fermented juice of the grape. It is j ust as much an artificial production as the various 
cordials which are found in the market. 

So far only what may pass as reasonably pure wines have been spoken of; that is, 
wines which come from the places where such wines originate, and which are free 
from adulteration other than what custom and long usage have sanctioned. 

Fictitious wines, that have never been within the limits of the wine-growing dis- 
tricts, are also to be found in the market. It is estimated that the champagne dis- 



52 

trict iu France does not produce more than one-tenth of the amount of champagne 
consumed, the remainder being manufactured from cider and other wines. 

Cream of Tartar is frequently more or less adulterated, usually with 

terra alba or gypsum, and to an extent varying from 5 to 75 per cent. 

On the subject of Glucose, Dr. Beckwith says : 

In view of the fact that about ten pounds of this product are manufactured in the 
United States for every man, woman, and child therein, annually, and that Cleveland 
is not quarantined against the rest of the country, a two hours' fruitless search for a 
small sample to be used in comparative analysis was certainly discouraging. Drug- 
gists, wholesale and retail, had none, but, with singular unanimity, referred the in- 
quirer to the candy manufacturers, who, to a man, knew nothing of the commodity. 

Parenthetically, a specimen of taffy of another kind, abstracted from an inviting 
pile, yielded 79 per cent, of glucose on analysis. 

Glucose is probably the leading adulterant upon the market. It is largely used in 
sirups, low-grade sugars^ jellies, and cheap confections. 

As artificially prepared it differs materially from cane-sugar, having but about one- 
third the latter's sweetening power and being devoid of color when in solution. It 
is frequently contaminated by the lime which is used to neutralize the sulphuric acid 
employed in the conversion of the starch into sugar. 

Free acid is also claimed to be occasionally found. The presence of lime in the 
ash of sugars or sirups, obtained by burning off the organic matter and carbon, is a 
good indication of glucose adulteration in the example under estimation. 

The cheapness of glucose, together with its close relationship to cane-sugar, enables 
the refiner to use it extensively as a sophistication at a handsome profit, and without 
fear of detection when shipped to country store-keepers and city dealers in localities 
where sanitary laws are not rigorously enforced. 

Per se glucose is wholesome and nutritious. Its production encourages corn-grow- 
ing, increases the sugar supply, and offers employment to capital and labor. So far 
the industry which it represents should be encouraged, but its sale as cane-sugar is a 
fraud, and should be as completely tabooed as the sale of artificial butter for the 
genuine article. Its cheapness and poverty in saccharine matter demand its com- 
plete isolation. 

In Europe glucose is largely prepared from potatoes ; in this country, on account 
of its greater abundance, from corn; whence the name corn-sugar or corn-sirup in 
common use. 

Seven examples of sirups were purchased for analysis, principally to determine 
the extent of glucose adulteration. 

These were bought at as many different retail stores in various parts of the city, 
and were in each case guaranteed free from adulteration. With Folding's solution 
six of them were found to contain abnormal amounts of glucose. 

The seventh, dark and unprepossessing in appearance, contained less than 4 percent.; 
about the usual quantity normal to cane-sugars. The following table shows the 
complete result : 
Glucose yielded (warranted cane) . 

Per cent. 

No. 1 23.19 

No. 2 '.I 19.76 

No. 3 29.30 

No. 4 43.06 

No. 5 3.97 

No. 6 16.15 

No. 7...., 31.68 

Two of these, numbers two and six, the lightest colored in the group, were incin- 



53 

erated, and tested for tbe salts of tin, which are quite often used as bleaching agents, 
with the following results : 

No. 2, 26- 1 s o Q u ° - grams contained 231 milligrams of ash and a free precipitate of iron 
sulphide, which was not weighed. 

No. 6, 13-$$h5- grams contained 184 grams ash and 113 milligrams of tin sulphide. 
The tin was precipitated from the chlorhydric solution by hydric sulphide. (The pres- 
ence of iron in No. 2 is not accounted for.) The chlorides of tin are poisons, being 
classed as such by Taylor and others. 

There are many well-authenticated cases of poisoning of people through the 
medium of the milk of cows which have eaten hyssop, spruce, buckeye (iEsculus gla- 
bra), and other poisonous substances, and it is universally known that milk instantly 
reveals any change of feed having a peculiar or easily-recognizable taste or smell, 
like-turnips or wild parsnips. In the light of these facts, what may he said of the 
intentional impoverishment and contamination of milk by the feeding of distillery 
waste, brewers' grains, glucose, and garhage, which is openly practiced in the city of 
Cleveland by unscrupulous venders ? 

An examination of the reports of analysts employed hy the Boards in different 
States will reveal the fact that about all of our food supply is largely adulterated. 
Household articles, according to the following table, compiled hy Dr. Newton, of 
New Jersey, suffer to an alarming extent. The table is appended : 

Per cent. 

Spices and condiments 66 

Ground coffee 45 

Tea 48 

Lower grade sugar 20 

Sirups 50 

Milk, when not inspected 50 

Flour none 

Bread 2 

Cream tartar aud baking-powder 44 

Butter (substitution of other fats) . . j 40 

Vinegar ..-/. -; rarely cider 

Olive-oil - 60 

If figures do not lie and scientific research deceive, we surely have iu this table a 
finger-board to the path of professional duty for this and other health boards through- 
out the United States. — (Dr. Beckwith, in The Sanitarian for July, 1887.) 

The following is a list of articles especially liable to adulteration, and 
adulterants used, according to the report of the chemists of the Mas- 
sachusetts State Board (see page 24, Massachusetts Report, 1886) : 

Milk. — Addition of water and coloring matter and abstraction of cream. 

Butter. — Substitution of foreign fats and addition of coloring matter. 

Spices. — Addition of starch and other foreign powders. Especially true of mustard 
and pepper. 

Cream of tartar. — Substitution of starch, gypsum, and other cheap substances. 

Baking-powders. — Alum and other injurious ingredients. Baking-powders have no 
legal standard, other than freedom from harmful ingredients. 

Lard. — Presence of cheaper fats and oils. 

Olive-oil. — Substitution of cheaper oils. 

Jellies and preserved fruits. — Substitution of cheaper fruits and addition of coloring 
matter. 

Vinegar. — Absence of the required amount of acetic acid and addition of coloring 
matter. 

Honey. — Substitution of cane-sugar, glucose, and other substances. 

Molasses. — Addition of glucose, presence of tin or other foreign substances. 

Sugar. — Glucose, poisonous coloring matter. 



54 

Maple-sugar and sirup. — Glucose. 

Confectionery. — Terra alba, poisonous coloring matter, fusel-oil, arsenical wrappers. 

Coffee. — Mixture or substitute of various cheaper substances. 

Canned fruits vegetables and meats. — Metallic poisons. 

DRUGS. FORM OF ADULTERATION. 



Opium and. its preparations, especially powdered opium, and tincture of opium. 
Deficiency in the required strength of the morphia. 

Cinchona, quinine and its preparations, especially the citrate of iron and quinine. 

Quinine pills. — Deficiency in weight. 

Compound spirits of ether. — (Hoffman's anodyne). Absence of its most important 
ingredient, the ethereal oil, or substitution therefor. 

Spirits of nitrous ether (sweet spirits of niter). — Deficiency in ethyle nitrite. 

Salts of bismuth. — Essence of arseuic. 

Tincture of iodine. — Deficiency of iodine. 

Iodide of potassium. — Excess of chloride or other impurities. 

Bitartrate of potassium. — Excess of lime or other impurities, and substitution of 
starch and other ingredients, 

Jalap. — Deficiency in required strength. 

Cochineal. — Loaded with heavy foreign powders. 

Essential oils. — Adulterated with turpentine. 

Pharmacopoeial ivines and liquors. — Excess or deficiency in required strength of 
alcohol and excess in solid residue, addition of water, alcohol, or sugar. 

Out of 288 samples examined by Dr. Davenport 132, or 45.8 per cent., were found 
not to be of standard quality. 

The Brooklyn Board of Health published the result of sundry analyses 
made in 1887, from which we quote the following : 




17 
2 
1 
2 

11 
3 
1 
5 
3 
2 
1 
4 
2 
1 
1 
4 
2 

65 



Lager beer for salicylic acid 

Ice-cream coloring 

Ice-cream flavor 

Cans of mackerel 

French peas 

do 

Milk color 

Macaroni 

do 

Cranberries 

Canned beans 

Candies 

Gelatine 

Canned corn beef 

Canned corn 

Candy colors 

Coffee colors 

Lactometers tested 



Seven contained it. 

Aniline green. 

Essence bitter almonds. 

Tin and lead found. 

Copper found. 

Copper determined. 

Annatto. 

Saffron, turmeric, and Martin's yellow. 

Same as above. 

One spoiled . 

Colored with copper. 

Two contained chrome yellow. 

One putrid. 

Negative. 

Spoiled. 

Not given. 

Not poisonous. 

Fifteen condemned. 



Six other articles were analyzed, but nothing was found wrong about them. 

From the report of the chemist of the American Society for Preven- 
tion of Adulteration of Food we give the result of examinations made by 
him and compared with similar work by a number of other chemists : 

From such examinations he made the following average of the per cent, of adulter- 
ation of the more common articles of food and drugs : Olive-oil, 60 per cent. ; castor- 
pil, 20 per cent. ; blue ointment, 61 per cent. ; tincture opium, 58 per cent. ; spices 
and condiments, 66 per cent. ; candies, 33 per cent. ; sirups, 50 per cent. ; cream tar- 



55 

tar, 40 per cent. ; baking-powder, 44 per eeut. ; butter,- 40 per cent. ; bread and pas- 
try, 15 per cent. ; milk, 40 per cent. ; lower-grade sugar, 20 per cent. : lard, 70 per 
ceut. ; tea, 40 per ceut. ; ground coffee, 49 per cent. ; cider vinegar, 80 per cent. ; ice 
cream, 55 per ceut. ; chocolate, 38 per ceut. ; honey, 24 per cent. ; "wine, 40 per cent. , 
beer, 45 per cent. ; spirituous liquors, 33 per cent. 

Boracic and salicylic acids. — The use of these acids as "preserva- 
tive" of liquors and food products urgently demaud attention of our 
legislators, as they have already secured that in France and Germany, 
where their use has been absolutely prohibited, except — and I desire to 
emphasize the exception — on export goods. 

Dr. Abbott, of the Massachusetts Board of Health, says: 

While they (these iugredieuts) are not named as active poisons by authorities on 
toxicology, there cau be but little doubt that their use iu considerable quantities, or 
for a long period of time, would have injurious effects. The value of food depends 
very much upon the readiness with which it is assimilated iu the process of diges- 
tion. This process is mainly a destructive oue, and anything which retards such a 
process outside of the body will also have a similar action within it, and hence 
necessarily impairs to some extent its nutritive value. To this effect should be 
added the effect of the drug itself upou the human economy. 

Professor Gossman objects to the use of salicylic acid for the preser- 
vation of butter, and Prof. L. B. Arnold says : 

It is not advisable to use boracic acid or salicylic acid in butter. They are objec- 
tionable as being foreign substauces. They are of uo use in the human economy. 
They neither produce warmth, nor make fat, flesh, or bone. They are medicinal and 
turn nature out of her course, and it causes a needless expenditure of vital force to 
absorb, circulate, aud cast them out of the system. 

The following articles are frequently used in the adulteration of 
liquors: Indian cockle, vitriol, grains of Paradise, opium, alum, capsi- 
cum, copperas, laurelwater, logwood, bazil-wood, cochineal, sugar of 
lead. 

Dr. E. Vallin, in the bulletin of the French Academy of Medicine 
(volume 16), says that a committee of that body recommended, owing to 
the difficulty of deducting the exact amount used and the danger of 
excessive quantities being used, if allowed at all, "that the addition of 
salicylic acid or its compounds, even in small amounts, in articles of food 
or drink, shall be absolutely prohibited by law." 

On page 48 of the Brooklyn report for 1887 we find the following : 

From the facts here stated, I am of the opinion that it is time that the addition 
of salicylic acid to articles of food receive a check at thehands of sanitary authorities. 

Various examinations of Brooklyn and Western beer revealed the 

presence of the injurious acid. A supplementary report to that above 

quoted gives a number of extracts from the American Analyst and 

others, concluding with the recommendation that the use of the acid be 

prohibited by law, and the writer adds : 

Beers that show signs of decay for some reason or other, and which by the use of 
salicylic acid could be preserved, are not proper beverages for the public. 

Canned goods. — A New York canned-goods firm assures us that there 
is no adulteration in the canned-goods trade. The Can-maker's Pro- 



56 

tective Union, on the other hand, claims that such adulterations exist, 

and that acids are used and machine-made cans with injurious results. 

A Philadelphia firm, dealing in canned goods and dried fruits, writes: 

la canned goods, dried peas and dried Lima beans are soaked and represented as 
fresh by unprincipled canners and dealers. In fruits there is an excess of water used 
to make weight and fill up the cans. 

The cost of soaked peas and beans is about 45 per cent, less than tbat 
of the fresh articles ; while, in addition to water, we find that " alcohol 
and molasses" are sometimes used to sprinkle dried fruits and to in- 
crease weight, but not often, water being the cheaper. 

Prof. S. B. Skarpless, already so extensively quoted, thus speaks in 
regard to this subject of canned goods in his work on Food Adultera- 
tion : 

Sometimes, through careless soldering or the use of terne-plate in making the cans, 
the articles preserved become contaminated with lead. As this, at the most, only 
exists in very small quantities, its detection is often a matter of difficulty. The best 
method of proceeding is to destroy the organic matter either with aqua regia or 
chlorhydric acid and chlorate. 

Copper is also occasionally found in these goods ; it comes from the copper vessels 
used in their preparation. This may be detected by the same means that are used in the 
detection of lead and tin. Copper is to be particularly looked for in canned vegeta- 
bles and pickles, which were formerly very generally colored with salts of this metal. 
Another fraud practiced in those goods is dilution with water or with sirup, the can 
having comxjaratively little solid matter in it. There has also been frequent com- 
plaint of light-weight and small-sized cans. 

Crackers — From replies received from cracker manufacturers in the 
various sections of the country it would seem as if this trade had ab- 
sorbed a large percentage of the few honest men in the country. All 
letters received on the subject from manufacturers disclaim any knowl- 
edge of adulterants, and one in particular, after vigorously disclaiming 
any knowledge of adulteration, concludes by authorzing me to li state 
positively that I use no adulterations in my goods. " Adulterations in 
these goods consists mostly, if adulteration it can properly be called, 
in the use of inferior grades of flour and butter. 

Flour is, as a rule, free from adulterations, though not infrequently 
mixed with inferior grades, while corn-meal is sometimes added; this, 
however, is a deception easily detected. 1 think we may set down the 
adulteration of flour as rare ; nor have I been able to find any known 
instance where soap-stone was used, as recited in the speech of the Hon. 
Mr. Green elsewhere quoted. 

Fish are a food product which hardly admit of adulteration, though 
it is alleged by some fish packers that fish caught by gill-nets are often 
placed on the market in an unfit condition for food. Doubtless this 
applies to fish caught in other ways as well. 

The liability to fraud in packing fish is in the packing of stale fish, 
while a good deal of commercial fraud is practiced by the putting up 
of inferior and cheap fish, which when packed are sold under the name 
of a superior and scarcer kind. 



57 

Lard. — Since this report was commenced the Chemical Division have 
issued part 5 of Bulletin 13, relating entirely to lard. Although much 
data on this particular subject has been carefully collected, it is deemed 
unnecessary to go further into the subject in this report. The reader 
who doubts that this important article of daily consumption is adul- 
terated in the most recldess and outrageous manner, is referred to the 
above Bulletin and the report of the Agricultural Committee of the House 
of Bepresentatives of the Fiftieth Congress, and also to the exhaustive 
and able report of Hon. E. H. Conger, of Iowa, in presenting the bill to 
prevent the adulteration of lard. 

Flavoring extracts are used more or less in every family, and the 
evidence I have been able to gather leads me to the conviction that a 
very small proportion of the flavoring extracts sold on the market is 
true to name. Most.of them are mixtures of acids and other drugs; 
indeed, the manufacturer who makes a thoroughly pure article has no 
chance in the market, where the cheapness of the artificial article gives 
it full sway. The acids and drugs used in the preparation of these 
goods are all more or less harmful, and as a result we not infrequently 
come across wholesale poisoning from their use. See for example the 
Washington Star, September 12, where a hundred persons at a wed- 
ding were poisoned, presumably by eating icecream. A manufacturer 
of this class of goods writes as follows : 

Fully 75. per cent, are sophisticated, and the cost of manufacture reduced about 50 
per cent. That of this the retailer gains 25 per cent., while the consumer receives no 
benefit whatever, and further, that these goods are always sold as pure. 

Tea, like coffee, is used in every household in the country, and has 
long been recognized as a necessary article of diet. Like coffee, too, it 
has become the prey of the adulterater, with this difference, that the 
adulterants in the case of tea are frequently not simply commercial 
frauds, but are often injurious to health, and sometimes extremely 
poisonous. ■ 

I subjoin extracts from replies received from two different tea houses, 
differing widely in their statements. 

Chase & Sanborn, Boston, say: 

There is very little adulteration iu teas and coffees. Teas certainly are pure, and 
the advent of the coffee-mill in the grocery stores has done away with ground coffee, 
and thereby with the opportunity to adulterate. 

They conclude their letter with the statement that "tea and coffee, as 
at present furnished, are to a very large extent pure products." But it 
seems that tea-dealers, like doctors, differ. 

Martin Gillet & Co., of Baltimore, say : 

Two-thirds of green teas from China and one-half of all Japan teas are faced or 
colored to give them a deceptive appearance. The facing is Prussian blue, gypsum, 
soap-stone, plumbago, and other chemicals. They are certainly not beneficial to 
health. Strange to say, the adulteration adds to the cost; that is, the color or facing 
costs. It simply enables the unscrupulous dealer to deceive the ignorant buyer. As 
a rule, all tea shipped from China aud Japan are branded by orders from America 
with the names of the highest grades. No one brands the truth ou the poorest grades. 



58 

In a letter accompanying the circular this firm says that as far back 
as ten years ago they opened correspondence with the Commissioner of 
the Agricultural Department, urging that something be done to pre- 
vent adulteration of tea, as they believe the honest dealer would thus 
be greatiy helped, and that it would be the means of increasing largely 
the use of the most wholesome beverage the world knows. • 

Vinegar. — Corn vinegar is sold as cider vinegar. The fraud consists 
in the white wine or corn vinegar being sold for pure cider. The color- 
ing used is made from caramel or burnt sugar. I learn from various 
sources, quite reliable and in no way connected with the manufacture 
of either cider or corn vinegar, that the latter is an excellent article for 
keeping pickles and for table use, but when sold under a false name it 
adds one more to the many frauds practiced upon the people. 

Water. — While more disease is caused and spread in all probability 
by the use of impure water than by any other one cause, it does not 
come within my province to discuss that matter, further than to call at- 
tention to the fact that many spurious mineral waters are sold, and it 
is claimed that contaminated water from city wells is largely used in 
the manufacture of these so-called beverages, because of their ability 
to take larger charges of gas. The question of impure water, how- 
ever, is one of so local a character as to call for legislation within each 
State for itself. It is clearly outside of the province of Congress to 
consider it. 

Concentrated lye. — It is estimated by a manufacturer of acids, soda- 
ash, etc., that a large amount of concentrated lye is adulterated with 
salt to the extent of 35 or 40 per cent., the standard being GO per cent, 
caustic soda, while the average is actually less than 40 per cent. While 
this extract is not directly in line with food products, I refer to its adul- 
teration because it is an article in general use in every household, and 
as illustrative of the general spirit of adulteration extending into nearly 
every department of commerce, including the shoddy used' in our cloth- 
ing, the poisons used in dyeing various articles, notably stockings, from 
the wearing of which sickness and in a few cases death has resulted. 



APPENDIX 



ADVANTAGES OF INSPECTION. 



As an evidence of the advantages of "inspection laws," it may be 
cited that in 18S3, when the milk inspection laws were first put into 
operation in Massachusetts, the samples examined showed 77.5 per 
cent, of adulteration, leaving only 22.5 per cent, above the required 
standard. In March, 1884, the samples from the same cities and towns 
and a few smaller towns showed 55.G per cent, above standard, when in 
1885 and for the fourteen months ending May 31, 1886, the result 
showed 66.7 per cent. 

To continue the illustration it is only necessary to show the increase 
in purity as shown by the report, page 82: 



Article. 



1884. 



1886. 



Vinegar 

Cream of tartar. 
Black pepper . . . 
White pepper... 

Mustard 

Ginger 



Per cent. 


Per cent. 


3!J 


62 


CO 


76 


21 


59 


35 


50 


35 


43 


76 


83 



PETITIONS AND RESOLUTIONS. 

The National Grange Patrons of Husbandry and a large number of 
State and local Grangers have passed resolutions and forwarded peti- 
tions urging Congress to pass a pure-food bill ; also alliances, wheels, 
and clubs in all sections of the country have urged the adoption of this 
measure. It is useless to attempt to enumerate the various trade organ- 
izations that have adopted resolutions favoring legislation, but the 
petitions referred to heretofore in Mr. Laird's report are very numerous, 
and signed by thousands of the best people in all parts of the land. 
Since the adjournment of Congress petitions have been constantly sent 
me from all parts of the country to be presented to that body when it 
meets in December. 

THANKS. 

I desire to return thanks to the following gentlemen for courtesies 
and information extended in the preparation of this report : Dr. Dav- 
enport, of Boston, State analyst; Prof. H. H. Webber, professor of 
agricultural chemistry Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio; Dr. 
Balch, secretary New York Board of Health, for valuable reports, and 
to all others who have kindly assisted me, but whose names are neces- 
sarily omitted for want of space. 

59 



60 

CIRCULAR TO THE TRADE. 

United States Department op Agriculture, 
Division op Chemistry, 

Washington, D. C, , 1889. 

* 



Dear Sir: Having beeu appointed a special agent of this Department to prepare 
"a report of a popular character on the extent of the adulterations of food supplies," I 
am anxious to learn from all reliable sources possible — 

First : The extent of adulterations. 

Second : The extent of adulterations injurious to health. 

Third : The extent of sophisticated goods that are sold as pure. 

I am anxious to present a report based upon facts, not conjecture, which will do 
no injustice to any person or trade, and at the same time show favor to none, and 
present a true statement of the condition of the matter treated ; therefore I ask the 
various trades engaged in the manufacture of food products to aid me with such data 
as they can furnish, so as to enable me to produce such a statement as will be of serv- 
ice to the commercial and agricultural interest of the country. 

I inclose an addressed and franked envelope for reply. 

Trusting you will aid us as far as you can couveniently, I am 
Yours, respectfully, 

Alex. J. Wedderburn, 

Special Agent. 



Please state your name, , address, ■ , business, 

To what extent, if any, does adulteration exist in your trade ? . 

State what adulterants are used — ■ . 

Are they, or any of them, injurious to health ; and, if so, which ? 



What is the estimated adulteration in your trade, what percentage of reduction 
does it make in the cost of the articles ? . 

What is the relative reduction of the sophisticated articles to the retailer, and what 
is the reduction to the consumer ? . 

Are the adulterated articles branded true to name, or are they misbranded and 
sold as pure goods ? . 

Can you refer me to any positive evidence of adulterations or misbrandings of food 
products in your own or other trades? . 

Will you kindly give me any farther information of a reliable character that will 
enable me to properly represent your trade in my report ? . 

LAWS RELATING TO ADULTERATION. 

New York passed a general law in 1881. 

Michigan passed a general law in 1881. 

New Jersey passed a general law in 1881. 

Massachusetts passed a general law in 1882, which was amended and improved in 
1880. 

The full text of the above laws (except the last) can be found in Part 2, Bulletin 13, 
Department of Agriculture; as can also be found the Canadian laws. The adultera- 
tion act, "Food, drug, and fertilizer." 

New York and Massachusetts have special laws relating to dairy products and vin- 
egar. 

New York, Ohio, and California have special wine laws. 

Twenty-three States have laws against the adulteration of dairy products. 

Illinois and Maine have stringent laws against the sale of adulterated lard. 

The United States have laws regulating and prohibiting the importation of teas 
and drugs not of a standard quality, also regulating the sale of oleomargarine. 



61 

The Fiftieth Congress adopted an anti-adulteration law for the District of Colum- 
bia. 

The British laws can be found in Hansell. 

There are stringent laws in Germany, France, Belgium, Austria, Holland ; and most 
of the European Governments require the proper branding of food and the insiiectiou 
of animals sold for food both before and after slaughter. 

The new law of New York relative to the standard of vinegar went into effect on 
August 27, 1889. 

The laws of the State of Massachusetts require that milk shall contain over 13 per 
cent, of milk solids; " to contain less, or to contain less than 9.3 per cent, of milk sol- 
ids, exclusive of fat, shall not be standard, except in May or Juno, when 12 percent, 
shall be standard. 

Massachusetts law provides for the publication in two newspapers of the names and 
residences of persons convicted of selling adulterated milk. 

To kill knowingly a calf under four weeks old in Massachusetts for the purpose of 
sale subjects the offender to imprisonment not to exceed six months or to a fine 
not to exceed $200, or both. And all such underage meat is subject to be destroyed 
whether the vernier knew it to be so or not. 

No action to recover a debt for an adulterated article can be made in a Pennsyl- 
vania court. 

To adulterate any liquor with poisons or other deleterious drugs subjects the of- 
fender to a fine of $1,000 and imprison nent not over a year. 

MAINE LARD LAW. 

Not having seen the following law in print, I give it in full: 

[State of Maine, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and eighty-nine. 1 
[An act to prevent fraud in the sale of lard.] 

Be it enacted by the senate and house of representatives in legislature assembled, as 
follows : j J a 

Section 1. No manufacturer or other person shall sell, deliver, prepare, put up, 
expose, or offer for sale any lard, or any article intended for use as lard, which con- 
tains any ingredient but the pure fat of swine, in any tierce, bucket, pail, or other 
vessel or wrapper, or under any label bearing the words "pure/' "refined," "family," 
or either of them, alone or in combination with other words, unless every vessel, 
wrapper, or label in or under which such article is sold or delivered or prepared, put 
up or exposed for sale, bears on the top or outer side thereof, in letters not less than 
one-half inch in length and plainly exposed to view, the words "compound lard." 

Sec. 2. Any person who violates any provision hereof shall forfeit the sum of fifty 
dollars to the use of any person suing therefor, in an action of debt. 

In House oe Kepresentatives, March 1, 1889. 

This bill having had three several readings, passed to be enacted. 

Fred N. Dow, Speaker. 

In Senate, March 2, 1889. 

This bill having had two several readings, passed to be enacted. 

Henry Lord, President. 

March 2, 1889. 
Approved,, 

Edwin C. Burleigh, Governor. 



U/ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




